The turnout for the Liberal leadership election was quite variable

 The turnout for the Liberal leadership election was quite variable:

https://chefferie2025leadership.liberal.ca/results/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In many regions this will be a polarizing election, where voters will vote Liberal or NDP to stop Poilievre. I have identified 15 ridings where the low Liberal leadership turnout may well presage success for the NDP.

For example, in Ontario, look at Humber River-Black Creek, which the NDP narrowly held in the recent provincial election on a turnout of only 35%, held federally by Liberal Judy Sgro (age 80) who is running again. Only 140 Liberals voted in this highly ethnic riding. Yet in Marco Mendicino’s Eglinton—Lawrence 860 Liberals voted. The Canada-wide average was 443.

NDP-held Windsor West saw only 304 Liberal voters; they ran no candidate provincially, and do not yet have a federal candidate. Look at London West: it had only 294 Liberal voters, even though its MP just made the cabinet, but provincially, its Liberals got only 11% against NDP MPP Peggy Sattler, while nearby London Fanshawe is NDP-held. The London West NDP has countered Liberal Arielle Kayabaga by nominating Shinade Allder; she is the first Black Chair of Unifor’s Ontario Regional Council.

See the new Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk where the NDP candidate Nicole Fortier Levesque has a transposed majority of 35.79% (mostly inherited from Charlie Angus) and the Liberals do not yet have a candidate: in the leadership race it had only 227 Liberal voters. And see the new Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, where the NDP stood second by (transposed) 846 votes in 2021, and 2021 candidate Andréane Chénier is running a strong campaign against Liberal Marc Serré. It had 302 Liberal voters, compared with 555 in Sudbury.

In Oshawa, 397 Liberal voters turned out; not bad, but well below Whitby’s 599 or Pickering—Brooklin’s 602.  Oshawa saw the Ontario Liberals get only 9% of the vote this year; looks like another NDP-Conservative battle.

Thunder Bay-Rainy River saw only 314 Liberal voters. They have a talented MP, aged 65, who has been overshadowed by his neighbour Patty Hajdu. The 2021 NDP candidate was a very close third and is running again.

In the one NDP seat in Quebec, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, only 188 Liberal supporters voted. Yet in the Liberal stronghold of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, 957 voted. What about Papineau, next-door to Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, a potential NDP gain with Trudeau no longer running there, replaced by a parachute from the PMO? Only 195 Liberals voted. And in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, where the NDP came 374 votes behind the Liberal in the by-election last year, only 282 Liberals voted; NDP Craig Sauvé is standing again while the Liberals have not yet nominated.

In Manitoba, in Niki Ashton’s riding of Churchill—Keewatinook Aski (with no Liberal candidate) they had only 45 Liberal voters. In NDP-held Elmwood-Transcona we find 234 Liberal votes, and 294 in NDP-held Winnipeg Centre. Compared these with nearby Winnipeg South, riding of minister Terry Duguid, where Liberals got 437 voters.

In Vancouver Fraserview—South Burnaby, where the NDP has a transposed vote of 31.1%, Harjit Sajjan is not running again, and Liberals saw only 292 votes. Yet in North Vancouver-Capilano where BC’s sole minister Jonathan Wilkinson hopes to be re-elected, they saw 940 votes. In Randeep Sarai’s Surrey Centre, where the NDP stood second, Liberals saw only 178 votes. In Surrey-Newton where Sukh Dhaliwal seeks re-election, again with the NDP second, they saw only 207 votes.