The poll that counts comes on election day

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/07/2023 (812 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The outcome of the provincial election in October is too close to call. That’s me telling you that, right here, right now, in the Free Press.

But things have a way of changing. Quickly. And people don’t always keep up.

When it comes to the bloodsport of politics, nothing disengages my polite button faster than a person regurgitating tedious and tired lines they read in the paper from a few weeks or a few months ago.

After a six-year hiatus from Manitoba life, I returned on Feb. 1, 2022. Temperatures, when I landed shortly after supper, were hovering around -25 C. Winds were howling at 80 km/hr. And the political temperature of the Opposition NDP was deep into the fever range. Even though I’d been away for 2,000 news cycles, my political instinct told me this fever would break.

At that point, friends and acquaintances kept repeating that the next provincial election would be a landslide for the NDP. It was all over the paper, meaning this newspaper. It was all over radio, meaning the people on radio were reading this newspaper. It was all over the coffee shops and family gatherings, meaning Manitobans were reading this newspaper or talking to people who do.

I am not here to knock the newspaper of record which privileges my life with two visits per week with the people I love — Manitobans.

I am simply here to tell you that a newspaper, by its very nature, is always feeding you the most accurate snapshot possible.

Snapshots are interesting. But they are regularly rendered meaningless moments after they are taken. They are hostages of real time.

So whatever the polls or attitudes were in February of 2022, I instinctively knew they would not remain relevant on election day. This is Saturday, July 29. We’re calling Tuesday a funny name — August. The provincial election is on the third day of October.

When you read this paper, you know the political temperature in Manitoba has been changing. Everyone agrees that while the NDP is ahead, the fever has broken. A new poll on June 20th, also in this paper, showed the numbers tightening considerably. As the people who play the ponies like to say, we have a horse race. But as always, you can’t see the race everywhere in the province.

There is no contest in most of Manitoba outside the Perimeter. It’s not that voters in Portage and Plum Coulee don’t care about crime, drug addiction and homelessness. But for most of them, it’s something they read about in this newspaper — not something they are experiencing in their everyday lives, and not something that is affecting their October decision.

How much urban blight are voters experiencing in most of Winnipeg? I’m glad you asked.

Because that’s where the next election is being fought. The question of whether the Manitoba PCs get four more years of government isn’t being decided in Niverville. The battleground looks more like a condo, apartment or bungalow in St. Vital and Southdale and a handful of other neighbourhoods primarily in South Winnipeg.

While the NDP may have had a healthy lead in Winnipeg, that lead is less today than it was then — and in the battleground of South Winnipeg the lead might be so small, you’d need a police detective’s magnifying glass to see it. If the NDP lead in the neighbourhoods that decide the outcome has shrunk to bite-sized in July, the trend tells us the PCs could easily get another bite of the power apple on Oct. 3.

Some people may ask how a party that looked like it was headed for sure defeat 18 months ago, could be on the doorstep of victory.

The simple answer is it happens all the time. Recently, in the province only two doors down, it looked for the longest time like the Alberta provincial conservatives, known as the UCP, were going to be defeated. That’s what the snapshot was saying last year.

But the pesky fact is the election was this year.

If the Manitoba PCs pull their chestnuts out of the fire and I am asked by readers what happened, my answer is simple.

Elections are fought every day and snapshots are taken every day. Columns are published every day.

But the decision is made on election day.

The only snapshot that history care about is taken on E-day. That’s the unmistakable, unshakable truth.

You’re reading all about it in the newspaper that is a thermometer of Manitoba’s political temperature.

You can reliably tell friends and family it’s a contest.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com