Tea leaves and Vancity byelection

The first mistake in trying to project a narrative from the Vancouver city by-election result is to believe that it carries any weight beyond the 10% turnout that it was.
Geoff Meggs resigned his council seat to take a senior position as John Horgan's chief of staff. So a by-election was held to replace him. 27% of the 10% eligible voters chose the NPA's candidate. Pretty underwhelming of a mandate. But, a decision nonetheless.

Today's spin: This is a verdict against the NDP. Against the NDP/Greens. BC Liberals on the rebound.

Nope.

Accurately, however:

  1. For a party on the rebound, netting less than a third of the popular vote in an election that excited no one is hardly worth celebrating.
  2. That "27%" mandate is with only one party on the centre-right. The NPA used to dominate this field and would have no trouble getting high numbers.
  3. The other 73% are voters, candidates, parties that are centre and centre-left. The 73% have to get their shit together.
  4. That 27% could win a seat is another damning indictment of FPTP.
  5. Most NDP supporters have already written off Vision Vancouver as yet another big developer party who gets most of their funding from the same corporations, developers and high rollers that funded Christy Clark's BC Liberals. 
If the NPA are representative of the centre-right in BC as well why could their united-right party could only muster 27%? This "win" is so weak, its almost is a loss.

my 2 bits

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