In his attempt to shore up base, Harper is shunning new supporters

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/10/2015 (3647 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is unclear whether the divisive campaign of fear being waged by the Conservative party was part of the plan all along. All we know at this point is it is now, and for the rest of the campaign, the tack the Tories will take.

A niqab ban in the civil service. A reluctance to respond in a timely fashion to the Syrian refugee crisis. A tip line for “barbaric cultural practices.” A bid to make support for Israel a wedge issue in the Jewish community. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not responsible for introducing all these issues into the campaign — various events at home and abroad overlapped with the election — but he has absorbed them into the Conservative plan of attack with great gusto.

The end result is one of the most unusual, most compelling and most disturbing federal elections in memory.

The method in the madness of Harper’s strategy is self-evident: raise or ride issues that register with and mobilize the core of Tory support. It has long been accepted by all players in the federal political scene the Conservatives have been better, by a long shot, at identifying and activating their supporters to get out and vote.

However, this is not your typical election campaign. It has been way more competitive, with at least three parties vying at times to form government. And it has been a nasty, often ugly campaign full of incendiary issues that will leave the country deeply divided when the voting is all over.

All of which raises a big question for Conservative organizers: is this the campaign, and are these the issues, that can mobilize enough core supporters to actually win the election? The answer to this critical question may lie with an examination of the trends in support for the Conservatives in past elections.

In the past three elections, the Conservatives have demonstrated a highly effective electoral strategy that takes full advantage of this era of relatively low voter turnout. Consider that in 2011, the Conservatives won the federal election with 39.6 per cent of the popular vote. However, with fewer than two-thirds of the electorate voting, the reality is the Tories received the support of only 24 per cent of registered voters.

And that’s an important number to remember going forward. The 2011 election represented a high-water mark for support in the united Conservative party’s four elections. That was a campaign in which the Tories steered clear of incendiary issues and focused on policies and pledges that easily captured enough votes for a majority.

In this campaign, if polls are any indication, the number of Canadians who will vote Conservative should go down by a considerable amount.

The reasons for a shrinking of Tory support are varied: a resurgent Liberal party that is better funded and organized; a New Democratic Party that was the subject of unprecedented voter interest; and a growing appetite for change after 10 years of Conservative rule.

Even issues such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — the massive 12-country trade deal Canada signed earlier this week — has the potential to divide the electorate. Trade deals almost always produce long lists of winners and losers, which makes them inherently divisive, particularly in the key battleground of Ontario, where manufacturers are conflicted about the impact of this deal.

However, those are issues that affect voters who have voted for the Conservatives but do not have a strong association with the party, or have never voted Tory. The core of Tory support has also been affected by a host of other issues: the alienation of military veterans and their supporters with cuts to key services; the fraud trial of Sen. Mike Duffy; ethical scandals involving Tory MPs, staff and senators.

It is unlikely core Tory supporters affected by these issues will run out to vote for another party. It’s more likely, however, they may choose to stay home on election day rather than vote Conservative.

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Political strategists will tell you that to win an election like this, a party must find a way to grow its voter universe. That means finding policies and pledges that attract voters and trying to stay away from things that drive voters away. It appears Harper has, in a desperate bid to shore up his core, been forced to adopt positions that will shrink his universe.

Poll results support this theory. In almost every opinion poll, the Conservatives have the smallest number of committed and leaning voters. That means undecided and leaning voters are much less likely to migrate into the Tory camp.

After recording a surge in support in 2011, the Conservatives are going to have to realize their dreams of re-election with considerably less support. And there are scenarios where the Tories lose hundreds of thousands of votes and still win a minority mandate. Such is the efficiency of their vote and the sophistication of their voter-identification system.

However, if it turns out the Tories come up just short of being re-elected, they will have four years to consider the wisdom of a strategy that embraces ideas that activate the base but repel just about everyone else.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.