Razor-thin byelection should have been slam-dunk for Tories, Brandon political scientist says

If Tuesday’s Spruce Woods byelection — the closest race in the deep-blue constituency’s history — was any indication, Manitobans can expect the NDP to target rural Tory seats the party believes are vulnerable in the 2027 provincial election campaign.

The Progressive Conservatives, who’ve won the 17-year-old Westman seat in every election with more than 60 per cent of the popular vote, eked out a win Tuesday with just 70 more votes than the NDP.

“I wasn’t surprised by the fact that it was a tight, close race,” said Brandon University political scientist Kelly Saunders. “But 70 votes is really quite a remarkably tight race in what should have been a shoo-in win for the PCs.”

Tory Colleen Robbins won with just 47 per cent of the popular vote, receiving 2,805 votes, narrowly defeating NDP candidate Ray Berthelette, who got 2,735. Liberal candidate Stephen Reid received 444 votes — just seven per cent of the vote — but played a major role in the outcome.

“I think it’s safe to say that there were some folks out here that might have been Progressive Conservative or voted that way in the past that weren’t really sold on voting PC this time around… but it was too much of a leap for them to maybe vote NDP,” Saunders said.

“Liberals are a good halfway place to kind of park your vote,” she said. “The Liberal candidate, to his credit, was a very strong candidate.”

Both the PC and NDP candidates “struggled at various points in the campaign,” which helped the Liberals , she said.

“Reid might have been the deal-breaker in this, in terms of keeping it to only a 70-vote spread and maybe stopping the NDP from being able to flip the seat,” she said.

“A lot of people were saying, ‘Why wasn’t this candidate running either for the NDP or the Conservatives?’ Why weren’t those two parties putting a little bit more energy into finding better qualified, maybe more experienced candidates?”

“I wasn’t surprised by the fact that it was a tight, close race, but 70 votes is really quite a remarkably tight race in what should have been a shoo-in win for the PCs.”–Kelly Saunders

Reid said Wednesday that he’s “very proud” of the campaign he ran.

“I think I ran an honest and professional campaign that people can respond to and I’m hearing quite a bit from people asking if I’m going to be running again for something,” the teacher from Brandon said in an interview.

He said he’d consider running again, but ruled out a switch to the Tories or NDP.

“I think that if you’re running for a party it should match your values, and those values are things that don’t change,” he said, adding he is considering a run for the provincial Liberal leadership.

Although he knew going into the byelection that his chance of winning “was very slim,” he said he saw it as political training ground and a chance to breathe some new life into the party.

“The Liberal party’s been brought down to one seat in the (legislature) and I think that’s really detrimental to Canadian voters because we need more than a two-party system,” he said.

Most rural constituencies — which have been the Tories’ traditional base of support — may no longer be seen as safe seats, Saunders said.

The PCs should have had an easy win in Spruce Woods but “really struggled,” she said, adding it was Obby Khan’s first test as leader to show that the party is rebuilding, has turned the page from the disastrous 2023 election campaign and is a government in waiting.

The PCs “have a lot of work ahead of them,” she said.

Khan said he learned a lot from the byelection, and passed his first leadership test with a win over Premier Wab Kinew’s party.

“The premier threw everything he could at this byelection and he still lost,” Khan said Wednesday.

“He manipulated the timeline, he tried to buy the votes of constituents in Spruce Woods with $300 million of phoney announcements. And, above all, he broke the law during the blackout period.”

Khan filed a complaint with Manitoba’s elections commissioner accusing Kinew of promising another highway upgrade days before the byelection, violating the Election Financing Act.

Saunders said the Progressive Conservatives will face a much bigger challenge in the next general election, which must be held by Oct. 5, 2027.

She pointed to Kinew’s remarks Tuesday, saying that he wants to be the premier for all Manitobans, to end the rural-urban divide, in which the NDP represents people in urban constituencies, and to pay more attention to rural Manitoba.

The premier said that the NDP government will live up to the $300 million in funding and promises it made during the Spruce Woods campaign and vowed to “keep showing up” for rural Manitoba.

“He’s got his eyes on the big picture but he’s going to have to prove to those of us in rural areas that he’s a man of his word and that the investments and the time and the energy and the focus that they’ve put into us is not a one-off — that he’s going to continue to do that,” Saunders said.

Unless the official results change significantly, there won’t be a recount. A judicial recount is held only if the difference between the candidate in the lead and second place candidate is less than 50 votes.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca