All Eyes Point To Durham. How A By-election Can Give Us A Check On Poilievre's Popularity
Why this Conservative safe seat, may not as safe as they think.
The 2024 election cycle in Canada is mainly dominated by provincial and municipal contests across our country, but there is one federal contest that is a very important one to watch. This is the GTA riding of Durham.
Durham is having its by-election on March 4, 2024, after former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole vacated his seat last year. By all definitions, Durham is a Conservative safe seat. The expectation for this seat is that it will remain within the Conservative side of the house.
The question is how much they are going to win that seat, if at all. There is good reason to potentially suspect that this election may not go in the Conservatives' favor.
By-elections provide fascinating insight into the current political opinions of the people. Consider it a barometer check into the confidence of the current government and how Canadians are feeling about the state of the country right now, even when they happen in relatively safe seats.
There is no doubt that the polls are leaning in Pierre Poilievre’s favor at the national level, with some polls showing him leading as high as 25 points over Trudeau and the Liberal Party. A clear sign that those polled have fatigue in the current government, which is expected after almost 10 years of rule.
In Durham, Conservatives won the riding by 17 points, firmly putting it into the safe category among pundits and news organizations. We don’t have any polling to come from the riding since by-elections don’t prompt polling agencies to run them. But given the national poll numbers, if they are true, the CPC should win this seat by over 25 points.
Anything less than that will mean that the Conservatives are not as popular as they claim or appear to be. They need to knock this one out of the park, and there is no other option for them at this time. If they only win by 20 points or even less than their 2021 17 points, then this is a clear indication that the polls currently have a fundamental problem.
The Conservatives aren't making this easy either. The candidate they selected, Jamil Jivani, is a non-practicing lawyer and former radio host who was let go from his position during the pandemic for allowing anti-vax misinformation and misgendering Demi Lovato after she came out as non-binary in 2021. There is no doubt that Jivani falls into the far-right side of the Conservative party.
This controversy has caught the attention of the Liberals who are looking to capitalize on these issues and even held a campaign stop by Prime Minister Trudeau in Bowmanville earlier this month. Something that is rare to see during a simple by-election in a safe seat. The PM wouldn't appear and campaign unless there was an apparent data point that shows they have a chance of winning.
So, what does all this mean? How is this so important? Well, there are a lot of tests that are going to happen with this election in March. First, this is going to test the polling numbers for the Conservatives. If they are as popular as the polls are claiming to be, they should win this riding by at least 25 points. Anything outside the margin of error shows a clear misstep in the polling ideology.
Second, this is a test of Trudeau’s on the campaign trail. I always say never underestimate the power of a campaigning liberal. The Liberal Party has a very powerful war room and has the ability to convince voters with many wins to point to. This is more apparent in urban ridings. Durham is mixed urban and rural, so we will see what power that campaign has. If the Liberals manage to break down their margin or even go as far as to win this riding, then this is a huge hit to Conservatives and their campaign strategy.
Third, this is going to test Canadians' resilience to extremism in the Conservative Party. As aforementioned, anything less than a 25-point win is a loss for the Conservatives, and if it appears that they only win by 5-10 points all because of the controversial nature of their candidate of choice, then Canadians hold up their ability to keep extremism in check at the ballot box.
So, what's going to happen? Well, I personally think that the Conservatives will win this seat, but it's going to be within the 5-10 point margin. I base this decision on other by-election performances at the federal level as well as provincially. In provincial contests across Canada, the Conservatives are hurting, losing safe seats in Newfoundland and BC, including the flipping of Manitoba to the NDP. BC is slated to reelect Eby with a major super majority showing the dysfunction among conservatives.
In the Oxford by-election in 2023, the Federal Conservatives only won the riding by 6 points, a riding that the Conservatives won in 2021 by over 25 points. Trudeau helped the campaign in that riding at that time, and the results proved that. The Conservatives appear to be a very fragile party. They have no base level support, and while Pierre is too busy flapping his mouth at the House of Commons, their by-election candidates are taking a beating.
Again, I fully expect Durham to maintain in the Conservative column. But if the Liberals do manage to lower the margin or even go as far as to win the riding, this will show both a fundamental flaw in the Conservative campaign and even more of a flaw in the polling numbers we are seeing at the federal level.
Election day in Durham is March 4, 2024. To find out more about this contest and to find your voting locations. Click here.
Canadian Politics 101 is a fully reader supported publication. Your support is what keeps us going. Please consider subscribing here on Substack to show your support.