Kinew won’t let Team NDP spike football before crossing goal-line Premier-in-waiting knows risks of taking big lead in the polls for granted with seven months to go By: Dan Lett Posted: 7:00 PM CST Monday, Feb. 13, 2023

Opinion

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This article was published 13/02/2023 (937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For NDP Leader Wab Kinew, it is a moment of unfathomable expectation.

Only six years into his tenure as party leader, the 41-year-old Kinew is headed for an election that must take place by Oct. 3. It’s an election that all polls suggest is his to lose.

For more than a year now, the Kinew-led NDP has led the governing Progressive Conservatives by very wide margins. In Winnipeg, where majority mandates are made or lost, the NDP holds a remarkable 20-point lead.

But as leaders more experienced than Kinew can attest, being too far ahead in the leadup to an election is not necessarily a good thing. Huge pre-writ head starts tend to soften support among committed voters and swing voters alike. It tends to discourage people of all political stripes from even taking the time to vote.

Faced with a scenario such as that, Kinew said he will focus on convincing the people who are following him to take nothing for granted.

“One of the things I always tell our team — and this is a very honest thing — is not a single vote has been cast,” Kinew said in an extended interview on the Niigaan and the Lone Ranger podcast.

 

 

“To be frank, there is a scenario in which the PCs could still win this next election. And that scenario is if progressive voters don’t turn out. And one of the biggest dangers of having progressive voters not turn out is if they feel that this thing is in the bag.”

There are signs the governing Progressive Conservatives are, in fact, counting on that exact scenario.

Premier Heather Stefanson is trying to plug policy holes in heath care and education but she also continues to trumpet the $1.3 billion in tax cuts her government has delivered. Tax cuts may infuriate non-traditional Tory voters, but they are a soothing salve for her base.

Things could change in the upcoming provincial budget, the last and best chance Stefanson has to win back support. But right now the Tories are focusing their efforts on energizing their base and hoping NDP support goes soft.

However, the NDP also needs to show it has the skill and instinct to navigate what will most certainly be a complex and contentious campaign.

“To be frank, there is a scenario in which the PCs could still win this next election. And that scenario is if progressive voters don’t turn out.”–NDP leader Wab Kinew

Kinew’s NDP is not the Gary Doer-era juggernaut that captured three consecutive majorities. Kinew acknowledged that much of his job since taking over the leadership has been to “renew” the party from top to bottom and get it ready to compete.

Is the NDP locked and loaded now for an election that may not come for seven more months? Early signs suggest it is not.

Kinew has overseen two byelection campaigns, one (Fort Whyte) the NDP really wasn’t expected to win and another (Kirkfield Park) it likely should have. The NDP has won in Kirkfield Park in the past, and all signs indicated it could do so again in the byelection.

When the smoke cleared, however, the Dec. 22 battle saw Tory candidate Kevin Klein pull out a 161-vote win over New Democrat Logan Oxenham. Since then, New Democrats have been debating various theories, with many acknowledging quietly that they may have suffered from some over-confidence.

A loss that should have been a win can be a harbinger of disaster, particularly if NDP strategists do not learn some harsh lessons from Kirkfield park. But if they do learn, then losing Kirkfield Park may be a blessing in disguise. It would mean not taking anything for granted in the fall.

Of course, get-out-the-vote mechanics are not the only hurdle Kinew and the NDP will have to overcome. They are going to have to convince Manitobans to elect their first premier of First Nations heritage.

Manitoba has the highest percentage Indigenous population of any province and is often described as ground zero in the national debate over reconciliation. However, it has also been a place fraught with conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens.

It will not help that the PCs will be hammering hard on Kinew’s personal history before he entered politics and, in particular, his run-ins with the law. The Tories are already running attack ads against him personally and seem poised to run a campaign that will, in part, attempt to elicit some “white fright.”

Borrowing pages from political leaders of all cultures and heritages, Kinew said he would prefer the campaign was about issues and the future of politics, and less about the character of any one politician.

“While the Tories will continue to attack me using various angles, I don’t want to fall into the trap of talking about myself because that’s not what this campaign is about,” he said.

“We are definitely going to answer any shot that is made against us, but we’ll do so by ensuring that we’re talking about the people of this province rather than trying to make it about ourselves.”

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com