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New Democrats’ Singh looks to dance his way to role as Canada’s kingmaker

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3 years ago

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WINNIPEG/VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Sporting dance moves on TikTok videos in his signature neon turbans, the leader of Canada‘s left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), Jagmeet Singh, is poised to recover from a 2019 election stumble and strengthen his position as kingmaker in the country’s next government.

Singh, the first member of a visible minority to lead a major Canadian federal party, helped prop up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal minority government for two years and could resume that role. A tight race means the Liberals or Conservatives may end up with another minority  after the Sept. 20 election.

Singh, 42, a criminal defence lawyer who became NDP leader in 2017, outstrips Trudeau and Conservative leader Erin O’Toole in personal popularity, according to polls and surveys. But the NDP lags both parties in polls, with 20% support among undecided voters, compared to 32% for both the Liberals and Conservatives, according to a Leger poll on Tuesday.

The NDP campaign has been on the offensive, with Singh almost exclusively visiting districts where the party does not have seats, a party official said.

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The party, which currently has 24 seats in Parliament, says it has more cash than in 2019, when it finished third, and is actively trying to capitalize on Singh’s popularity and his social media savvy.

Singh’s TikTok videos regularly draw more than 1 million views and he is quick to jump on Instagram and Snapchat with updates from the campaign trail. Last year, he squared off against U.S. Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the popular Among Us video game, in a livestreamed fundraiser.

In the campaign’s final days, the NDP plans to feature him in the Nintendo video game Animal Crossing and is considering projecting his image on the sides of buildings.

Whether that will translate into more votes is unclear. The NDP could also see its traditional youth base affected by the absence of college-based voting stations this year, due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

However, the party is trending higher in polls this time than in 2019.

“People didn’t really know Jagmeet Singh last election,” said Nikki Hill, who previously helped run federal NDP campaigns and is now an Earnscliffe political strategist. “What they’ve seen in the last couple of years is someone they actually identify with.”

During the past two years, Singh pressed for more social spending by the Liberal government and resisted previous gambits by the government to trigger an election, saying it was unnecessary in a pandemic.

Another minority government would result in either the Liberals or Conservatives relying on Singh to support the next government, giving the NDP an opportunity to push for concessions on its priority issues such as government-paid drug or dental care, higher taxes on the wealthy, hiking minimum wage and cancelling student debt.

“People are fed up with being taken for granted by the Liberals,” Singh told Reuters. “Things haven’t gotten better, they’ve gotten worse, so they’re looking forward to something different.”

Asked about areas of common ground on which the NDP could work with either the Liberals or Conservatives, he said: “I’m less interested in committing to a party (to work with). I’m committed to working on the things that will make people’s lives better.”

“If someone wants to work with me to tax the super-wealthy, I welcome people to do that,” Singh added.

Trudeau has warned that progressive votes for the NDP, instead of Liberals, may help elect the Conservatives, and he has criticized Singh’s climate plan for lack of details.

The NDP has committed C$200 billion ($158.2 billion) in new spending over five years, and promises to cut emissions 50% by 2030 from 2005 levels. But at a recent leaders debate, Singh sidestepped questions about whether he would cancel expansion of the government-owned Trans Mountain oil pipeline.

The NDP needs to pull out wins in British Columbia and in urban Toronto to cement significant gains, benefiting in part from a dysfunctional Green Party, pollsters say. The NDP could pick up six seats in Canada‘s biggest city of Toronto, according to a senior Conservative.

The NDP may have more leverage in the next government because polls indicate it may be the only losing party, other than either the Conservatives or Liberals, with enough constituency seats to pass bills, said CIBC Chief Economist Avery Shenfeld.

Winning it all may be a step too far for the NDP, which has never held power federally. In its best showing, it romped to a shock second-place finish in 2011 and became the official opposition for a few years.

In a late August campaign stop in Winnipeg, indigenous leaders appeared with Singh at a press conference before unexpectedly endorsing a Liberal in a Manitoba parliamentary constituency.

Singh looked on awkwardly.

“All campaigns experience difficulties at some point,” said Alex Marland, political science professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

 

(Additional reporting by Julie Gordon and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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Trump faces political risks as trial begins – NBC News

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April 17, 2024

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April 15, 202400:53

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As Donald Trump the candidate overlaps with Donald Trump the defendant, new polling finds that many crucial independent voters consider his trial to be a serious issue. NBC News’ Hallie Jackson reports.April 15, 2024

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Florida's Bob Graham dead at 87: A leader who looked beyond politics, served ordinary folks – Toronto Star

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7 hours ago

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April 17, 2024

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A leader like Bob Graham would be a unicorn in the hyper-partisan politics of today.

The former Florida governor and U.S. senator wasn’t a slick, slogan-spouting politician. He didn’t have an us-against-them mentality. Sometimes, he even came across as more of a kind-hearted professor just trying to make the world a better place.

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The Earthquake Shaking BC Politics

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9 hours ago

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April 17, 2024

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Six months from now Kevin Falcon is going to be staggering toward a catastrophic defeat for the remnants of the BC Liberals.

But what that will mean for the province’s political future is still up in the air, with the uncertainty increased by two shocking polls that show the Conservatives far ahead of BC United and only a few percentage points behind the NDP.

BC United is already toast, done in by self-inflicted wounds and the arrival of John Rustad and the Conservative Party of BC.

Falcon’s party has stumbled since the decision to abandon the BC Liberal brand in favour of BC United. The change, promoted by Falcon and approved by party members, took place a year ago this week. It was an immediate disaster.

That was made much worse when Rustad relaunched the B.C. Conservatives after Falcon kicked him out of caucus for doubting the basic science of climate change.

Falcon’s party had fallen from 33 per cent support to 19 per cent, trailing the Conservatives at 25 per cent. (The NDP has 42 per cent support.) That’s despite his repeated assurances that voters would quickly become familiar with the BC United brand.

BC United is left with almost no safe seats in this election based on the current polling.

Take Abbotsford West, where Mike de Jong is quitting after 30 years in the legislature to seek a federal Conservative nomination. It’s been a BC Liberal/United stronghold. In 2020 de Jong captured 46 per cent of the votes to the New Democrats’ 37 per cent and the Conservatives’ nine per cent.

But that was when the Conservatives were at about eight per cent in the polls, not 25 per cent.

Double their vote in this October’s election at the expense of the Liberals — a cautious estimate — and the NDP wins.

United’s prospects are even worse in ridings that were close in the 2020 election, like Skeena. Ellis Ross took it for the BC Liberals in 2020 with 52 per cent of the vote to the NDP’s 45 per cent.

But there was no Conservative candidate. Rustad has committed to running a candidate in every riding and the NDP can count on an easy win in Skeena.

It’s the same story across the province. The Conservatives and BC United will split the centre-right vote, handing the NDP easy wins and a big majority. And BC United will be fighting to avoid being beaten by the Conservatives in the ridings that are in play.

United’s situation became even more dire last week. A Liaison Strategies poll found the NDP at 38 per cent support, Conservatives at 34 per cent, United at 16 per cent and Greens at 11 per cent. That’s similar to a March poll from Mainstreet Research.

If those polls are accurate, BC United could end up with no seats. Voters who don’t want an NDP government will consider strategic voting based on which party has a chance of winning in their ridings.
Based on the Liaison poll, that would be the Conservatives. That’s especially true outside Vancouver and Vancouver Island, where the poll shows the Conservatives at 39 per cent, the NDP at 30 per cent and United lagging at 19 per cent. (The caveat about the polls’ accuracy is important. Curtis Fric and Philippe J. Fournier offer a useful analysis of possible factors affecting the results on Substack.)

And contributors will also be making some hard choices about which party gets their money. Until now BC United was far ahead of the Conservatives, thanks to its strong fundraising structure and the perception that it was the front-runner on the right. That’s under threat.

The polls also mark a big change in the NDP’s situation. This election looked like a cakewalk, with a divided centre-right splitting the vote and a big majority almost guaranteed. Most polls this year gave the New Democrats at least a 17 per cent lead over the Conservatives.

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