Why the NDP is poised for one of its best showings

WHAT POLLY HAS TO SAY

For the rest of Election 44, National Post will be sharing insights from Polly, an artificial intelligence engine developed at the University of Ottawa that was the only pollster to correctly predict the results of the 2019 election. Unlike typical polls, Polly gauges public opinion through constant computer analysis of public socialmedia posts: If you’ve ever posted something political to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you’re probably part of Polly’s data set. Today, a look at how the NDP could be cruising toward a second orange wave.

According to Polly’s latest seat projections, the NDP is poised to take 39 seats on Sept. 20. This will easily make it the No. 3 party in a parliament that is almost certainly going to be hung (the Bloc Québécois, by contrast, will probably only eke out 20 to 25 seats).

Thirty-nine seats would be a disastrous result for the Liberals or the Conservatives (as indeed it was when the Liberals under Michael Ignatieff won 34 seats in 2011). But for the NDP, getting to 39 seats is a feat it’s managed only three times before in the 20 federal elections it’s fought since its 1961 founding.

It also be a massive gain of 15 seats over the 24 that the NDP won in 2019.

The result would be all the more remarkable given that the NDP would do this without help from the extraordinary factors that usually help them win historic victories.

The famous 2011 Orange Wave saw the NDP dominate Quebec in large part due to a mass protest vote against the Bloc Québécois.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s capture of 44 seats in 2015 was thanks in large part due to a wave of briefly entertained enthusiasm that the party could take power.

But Jagmeet Singh is poised to become one of the most powerful NDP leaders in history despite no realistic possibility of him becoming prime minister, and without an entire province suddenly voting for him out of spite.

In fact, Quebec remains lukewarm on the NDP. Ten years after the Orange Wave, Polly has Quebec voting in only three Ndpers.

It’s more than the one seat the party got in 2019, but shows that the NDP is not the primary beneficiary of diminishing Bloc support like it was in 2011. On Thursday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault specifically named both the Liberals and NDP as parties whose “centralized” approach to government was “dangerous” to Quebec.

It’s also only Singh’s second go at this. NDP Leader Ed Broadbent had to fight four elections before he ultimately attained a career high of 44 seats in 1988. But Singh’s been leader for just four years, and he’s been an MP only since 2019.

And the NDP’S fortunes have been good right from the beginning of the campaign.

Election 44 has been largely a dramatic story of the Liberals hemorrhaging votes and the Conservatives picking them up. According to Polly’s analysis, the Liberals were indeed poised to capture a majority on the day they called the election. But each subsequent day on the campaign trail saw that support winnow until, starting Sept. 1, Polly was projecting a Conservative minority.

But throughout all of these shifting fortunes, the NDP has remained relatively stable.

On the first day of the election, Polly saw that voters were already willing to give the NDP an extra 11 seats over its 2019 showing. Almost everywhere in Canada, those sentiments have stayed static throughout the campaign.

The only exception was B.C., where plummeting Liberal fortunes have benefited the NDP almost as much as they’ve helped the Conservatives.

Singh entered Election 44 with an NDP that was stronger and more recognized than at any point since he took over as leader. And while the NDP hasn’t been able to strengthen that lead significantly during the election, it’s also avoided the fate of the Liberals, the Greens and the Bloc Québécois, all of whom have seen stunning collapses in support since the election call.

So while it won’t be the primary story of Election 44, the NDP is well-poised to be a testament to the Canadian electoral virtues of simply standing on the sidelines, making sure voters know your name and not noticeably screwing things up.