in a shocking upset the conservatives came out victorious in yesterday’s Toronto byelection winning a rioting that the Liberals had held for more than 30 years it’s a result that not even the top adviser to conservative leader Pier PV predicted well I think a strong showing for us is going to be I I I I think we’re you’re going to see that we’re we’ve done better than what we have in the past we knew was tough going into but I think that this this will be a uh this will probably stay on the liberal side of uh the liberal side of things Deputy Prime Minister chrisa Freeland called the result disappointing but says it’s a loss the Liberals are taking seriously we know that things are hard for people in Canada and we know we have to work even harder delivering for Canadians winning back the trust of Canadians that’s what we’re all committed to do to break down the results of this shocking byelection David ketto is the CEO and founder of Abacus data and Chachi curl is the president of the Angus Reed Institute David I’m going to start with you Karina Gould told us the Liberals are ready to listen to the message from voters what is your sense of what the message was um I think it’s I want change and what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working to solve the problems I’m feeling in my life I think is the main message coming from the Toronto St Paul’s byelection last night and frankly the polls that that uh we’ve been doing all of us for the last year that’s been saying very much the same thing um voters are looking for change they’re unhappy with the state of the world and the state of their place in it and uh right now many of them either blame or not necessarily blame but don’t think the federal government and the Liberals have done enough to help alleviate those things now shuchi David did not say uh Justin Trudeau in that sentiment but I wonder is it your what is your sense of how much this comes down to the Prime Minister himself so this is where it’s really interesting but first of of all I went a little bit buge eyed when you talked about what Karina gold said because like really she she wants to learn what the message is the message has been screamed to David’s point for the better part of a year and it is something different it is changed now in terms of the was this was this a vote against uh Justin Trudeau was this a referendum on Justin Trudeau obviously when you’ve got 44% turnout for a summer byelection in a liberal stronghold it was very much a repudiation and and a spanking of uh not only the party but the leader it can’t be read any other way but now uh as we go into the okay what’s next and as the Liberals look to regroup and figure out what’s next you know the chattering classes have been talking for for weeks and certainly in the leadup to this byelection that if it was a loss for the Liberals then the PM would be under some pressure to leave the problem is this the people who elected the conservatives in Toronto St Paul’s they they they’re conservative voters they’re never coming back to the Liberals at least not in the short term and changing we have data I’ve looked at data that shows it doesn’t matter whether Trudeau stays or goes they’re not coming back uh under any circumstance so now the Liberals have to focus on the available voters that are there for them and these are soft liberal voters who haven’t left yet they are looking at the NDP they are looking at other options and we say look what giv what why are you unhappy what we hear from them is that it’s not necessarily about the leader it’s about the lack of progress on the issues that they care most about and so changing you know the person at the top changing brands at this stage isn’t necessarily going to help them sort of consolidate what’s left of that vote David we referenced in that interview with Karina G some of your analysis about what this trend would mean if we saw such a big boote swing across the province can you walk us through what you found yeah so I worked with our friend Eric Grenier who who did a a model to basically say if we saw a 25o swing which is what we saw last night in Toronto St Paul away from the Liberals to the conservatives um what would that mean across Ontario so we only looked at Ontario ridings under the new map and the conclusion was that uh 55 liberal MPS or candidates if they were to run in those writings would lose uh writings that they currently hold and and those are ridings uh across the GTA most of Ottawa most of the smaller cities across the province as well as many other 416 ridings like Eglington Lawrence which is right beside St Toronto St Paul’s would go conservative and the Liberals would be left with a smaller number of seats in Ontario even though there will be more seats in Ontario than after the 20111 election now that’s there’s a lot of assumptions built into that but what it shows is you know it it maybe get any worse than it did last night in Toronto St Paul’s but even if it gets a little bit better over the next year dozens and dozens of liberal incumbents are are in deep trouble and that’s just Ontario I think the same would be true for those in Atlanta Canada and in British Columbia as well before we uh go back to shuchi David I just wondered do you share her analysis that it doesn’t matter uh whether Trudeau stays or goes that this is ultimately you know sort of a a big problem that the Liberals have to face no matter what well I I agree with with the research that that the findings that she has I I think that that when you ask Canadians you know would anything change your view uh they say no but what I’m not sure about is how a change in leader or at least an announcement from Trudeau let’s say hypothetically that he’s not going to run again what does that do to the conversation and that’s something I think research has a very hard time predicting right that hypothetical because right now people are so focused on what they don’t like about Mr Trudeau what they don’t like about the Liberals that I don’t even know if they can imagine a world without him because he’s been prime minister for so long so I’m not of the view that the Liberals can never come back from this and that a new leader won’t change things but I do agree that that maybe it’s not as steep a climb uh as if it was just with Mr trudo alone but it’s still a very steep climb for the Liberals no matter who would be leader shachi what does the research tell us about potential Replacements be it individuals or sort of the characteristics folks are looking for so one of the things that the conser atives clearly have on their side right now is enthusiasm and momentum they want to show up for pier POV they’re excited to do that and at best what a change at the top could do for existing liberal voters is reinvigorate the party reinvigorate fundraisers volunteers people who want to be uh still associated with the liberal brand and say Hey you know now we’ve got that Fighting Chance that David just talked about it’s still a very Steep Hill to climb but maybe you know it puts a bit of spring in their step that’s the good news the bad news is that it really doesn’t change much again for soft voters or for for kind of maybe liberal voters among that group and those are the people I got to I got I can’t underscore this enough these are the people the Liberals need to bring back into the tent those who have slipped over to the NDP those at risk of staying home saying that they don’t know until the last minute and then just not casting about it uh when we test names like Chris Freeland Mark Carney Mark Miller others there’s a whole list of them go to angus.org and have a look at it um what we find is that among those soft uncommitted liberal voters it’s not really the thing that locks them in changing those those faces or those names there’s no one person and so much of the conversation Katherine is around like oh if only it was so and so this person could be the Savior that person could be the Savior what we find is there is no real clear savior who’s got enough uh momentum or interest to grow out the base that exists and that’s what the Liberals desperately need to do if they have any hope of not being wiped out interesting David I do want to ask you about this protest vote 84 names on the ballot a lot of them tied to uh protest candidates who were calling for electoral reform if you add up their votes uh it does it’s more than the margin of Victory do you think that that changed the outcome um it it might have uh maybe the confusion of it but I don’t think I think we’re getting lost I’m not one who believes that if the Liberals won last night by one vote um the story is the same in my mind is that they once safe liberal seat is no longer a safe seat um so I’m not sure if it it may have changed the outcome but I don’t think it changes the implications of the vote itself and and so you know it’s hard to say some some voters may have voted for any uh anyone who wasn’t one of the main parties or a listed party anyways they just dispersed uh across multiple multiple names uh sh in closing I will just ask you you know we always hear about byelections how much can we read into byelections uh what should the takeaway message be for folks about what this means for the next general election uh in this case there are occasional B elections that do seem to portend or foretell something bigger and stronger how many of us went to bed last night tucked up looking at that what looked at the time like a margin of victory for the Liberals that was tight and I remember thinking well gosh okay the conversation’s going to be how they scraped one out and what does that portend what does that mean in this case the conservatives showed up they pulled their vote they flipped the script and I think that is a big thing that we should be reading into their level of election Readiness if they could pull vote in what has traditionally been a stronghold how and look at the ways they’re going to be prepared to pull vote in marginal seats in all of the places that they need to win I think that’s what we need to be looking at just as much as polling okay thank you both so much for this conversation David kto Shi curl thanks Katherine thanks C
Abacus Data’s David Coletto and the Angus Reid Institute’s Shachi Kurl break down the surprising results of last night’s Toronto-St. Paul’s byelection and what it will mean for the Liberal Party ahead of the next federal election.
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