Winnipeg byelection voter turnout reflects ‘hard sell’

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This article was published 20/06/2023 (896 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Low voter turnout to elect two new Manitoba representatives to the House of Commons has reinforced the “hard sell” of summer byelections and the challenge faced by politicians to capture the electorate’s attention.

Just 36.6 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot Monday night in the urban riding of Winnipeg South Centre, where residents tend to turn out in droves in general elections.

According to unofficial results, just 25,725 out of a potential 70,230 registered voters made it to the polls to select a new representative in Ottawa.

Liberal candidate Ben Carr won the seat — formerly held by his father Jim Carr (1951-2022) — with 14,278 cast in his favour.

Since 2015, voter turnout in the riding has been consistently high, near 70 per cent.

Probe Research partner Mary Agnes Welch described the level of engagement in the 48-person race (42 were registered as independents in a bid to bring attention to the issue of election reform) as quite low.

“A byelection in June is a hard sell in the first place,” the public opinion researcher and pollster said Tuesday. “Turnout tends to be higher when you think your vote really matters.

“It just wasn’t close,” she said. “People get out and vote when they think their vote really counts and when they’re really mad or really scared of the alternative… I don’t think any of those feelings were necessarily at play to any great degree in this byelection.”

Most expected the riding to remain with the Liberals and, for many voters, the contest was personal, owing to the elder Carr’s death in December and his son’s ambition to take on the role, Welch said.

Conservative candidate Damir Stipanovic had a respectable result for a byelection (the runner-up at 6,100 votes), she added.

However, “Of all the ridings in the province, probably some of that more right-wing, (federal Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre messaging, it probably resonates the least in Winnipeg South Centre,” Welch said, noting former party leader Erin O’Toole recently warned of the challenges of “performance politics” and cautioned politicians against allowing conspiracy theories about the United Nations or World Economic Forum to go unchallenged.

“A lot of voters in that riding were making a personal choice to vote for Ben Carr because they knew his dad. His dad was the MP (from 2015 to 2022) and this probably had less to do with the national stage than it normally would in a general election.”

“A lot of voters in that riding were making a personal choice to vote for Ben Carr because they knew his dad.”

In the expansive, rural Manitoba riding of Portage—Lisgar, Welch described voter turnout of 45 per cent Monday as “not terrible.”

Conservative candidate Branden Leslie ran a strong campaign and targeted appeals to area residents in terms they could relate to, she said.

A byelection was necessary after longtime Conservative MP and former interim party leader Candice Bergen resigned her seat.

Leslie received 20,215 votes out of 31,127 ballots cast (64.9 per cent), with 247 out of 248 polls reporting, as of Tuesday afternoon. There were 68,988 people registered to vote.

People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier received 5,349 votes (or 17.2 per cent) to place second.

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“(Leslie’s campaign) spoke very particularly to some of the faith-based voters, some of the people who do swing quite hard right in that riding,” Welch said. “If he’d run a more centrist campaign, we might see that ratio a little different.

“But Branden Leslie kind of beat Max Bernier at his own game.”

Welch said the presence of the Quebec-born PPC leader in the race for the typically safe Manitoba seat raised the stakes for the Conservatives, who had to prove the “Max Bernier effect” would not present a big problem.

“There was a real choice facing voters in that riding,” she said.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca