{"id":2483,"date":"2009-11-16T20:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2483"},"modified":"2009-11-16T20:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T01:18:00","slug":"fun-with-numbers-2008-conservative-breakthroughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2483","title":{"rendered":"Fun With Numbers: 2008 Conservative Breakthroughs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks back, I posted on the ridings where the Liberals exceeded retrospective expectations in the 2008 elections (how’s that for a Rumsfeldian opening sentence<\/em>?).<\/p>\n

Click on the link<\/a> for a fuller explanation, but the short of it is these were ridings where the Liberal candidate did a lot better than you’d expect them to, once regional shifts and incumbency effects were taken into account. So, for example, if the Liberal vote dropped 7 points in Edmonton from 2006 to 2008, and a Liberal candidate held onto the party’s 2006 vote, then (ignoring incumbency for a second) he’d be considered to have performed 7% better than expected.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind this is relative – Stephen Harper’s +1% residual doesn’t mean he’s not an asset in Calgary Southwest…only that 2008 Stephen Harper wasn’t any better than 2006 Stephen Harper.<\/p>\n

So, here are the top 10 Tory ridings from 2008 – the ridings where the Conservatives did a lot better than we might have expected:<\/p>\n

1. Chicoutimi-Le Fjord <\/a>(+14%): Despite all the problems Harper had in Quebec in 2008, Jean-Guy Maltais increased the Tory vote here by 10%, largely at the expense of the Liberals.<\/p>\n

2. Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou <\/a>(+13%): Same story as above. Despite Harper’s problems in Quebec, there were a lot of ridings where the Tories made big gains last election. Some may peg the blame for this on Dion, but I’d be inclined to think a lot of hard work on the ground may have had something to do with it.<\/p>\n

3. Western Arctic <\/a>(+12%): Part of this was a “bounce back” from 2006, when the Tories seriously under performed in this riding.<\/p>\n

4. Manicouagan<\/a> (+12%): See 1 and 2, above.<\/p>\n

5. Peace River<\/a> (+10%): This one deserves an asterisk – the bump is really only because an independent candidate snatched up 20% of the vote in 2006.<\/p>\n

6. Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Rivi\u00e8re-du-Loup <\/a>(+10%): This one is really interesting, because it means last week’s huge by election gains in this riding built off of big gains in the last general election. Given that, I could certainly keep an eye on some of the other Quebec seats here, where the Tory vote increased last election.<\/p>\n

7. Thornhill <\/a>(+9%): This is definitely a riding the Tories targeted before the last campaign. And, with a little help from Peter Kent’s name recognition, it certainly paid off at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

8. Sault Ste. Marie <\/a>(+9%): Cameron Ross and the Tories did a great job turning this from an NDP-Liberal duel in 2006 to an NDP-CPC duel in 2008.<\/p>\n

9. BC Southern Interior <\/a>(+9%): Another asterisk, as the Tories dropped their candidate in 2006, after he was hit with smuggling charges during the campaign.<\/p>\n

10. Vaudreuil-Soulanges<\/a> (+9%): Well, I guess that’s some consolation for Senator Fortier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks back, I posted on the ridings where the Liberals exceeded retrospective expectations in the 2008 elections (how’s that for a Rumsfeldian opening sentence?). Click on the link for a fuller explanation, but the short of it is these were ridings where the Liberal candidate did a lot better than you’d expect them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}