NDP eyeing first seat increase since 2011 election
With an engaging leader, more experience and plenty to spend, party feeling confident
OTTAWA — The New Democratic Party is feeling good — so good, in fact, that one of its top officials is openly predicting it will gain seats in this summer’s federal election.
“I believe that we will definitely have more MPs after this next campaign,” NDP national director Anne McGrath told the Star days before the campaign for the Sept. 20 election kicked off last week.
“It will be the first time in a decade that we will have increased the size of the caucus.”
That’s a reference to the 2011 election, when Jack Layton led the NDP to its best-ever result. In the two elections since then, the party has dropped scores of seats. But now the New Democrats have more money, better polling results and higher hopes for leader Jagmeet Singh’s prowess on the campaign trail.
Here’s how the NDP’s election machine is trying to make McGrath’s prediction come true.
More money, fewer problems?
Hobbled by fundraising woes before the last campaign, the NDP enters this year’s race with at least $24 million to spend — more than twice the $10.5 million it spent in 2019.
“We are spending more on advertising in this campaign than we spent on the entire campaign last time — so that’s pretty significant,” McGrath said.
She said the increase is a result of improved fundraising after donations plummeted from the $18.6 million in 2015 to around $5.2 million in 2018. The party raised more than $8 million in 2019, around $6 million through the pandemic in 2020 and $3.2 million in the first half of 2021, according to returns filed with Elections Canada.
McGrath attributes that fundraising success to the NDP’s performance in the minority Parliament. The party also owns an office building named for Layton in downtown Ottawa, which has allowed it to borrow money with the confidence it can be repaid, she said.
The party also hired staff to work exclusively with MPs to raise more money in their ridings, said one senior NDP official who spoke on condition they weren’t named. The NDP now plans to spend significantly on TV ads, and will bulk up its campaign staff to more than 100 people, the official said.
Looking to grow
The NDP is trying to lay the foundation for a campaign that improves its seat count in the House of Commons, after it lost 15 of the 39 ridings it held before the 2019 election.
The official said the party is targeting roughly 50 ridings as key battlegrounds, starting with ones it has previously represented.
Those include ridings in southwestern Ontario, such as Essex and Windsor— Tecumseh, where NDP incumbents were defeated in 2019.
The NDP is also eyeing ridings in Edmonton and Saskatoon, urban centres in western provinces typically dominated by federal Conservatives, as well as swaths of northern Ontario and British Columbia, and Toronto ridings like Parkdale—High Park, the official said.
In a bid to reverse the party’s declining fortunes in Quebec, where deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice is currently its sole MP, the party has placed policy director Jonathan Gauvin in charge of campaign and media strategy.
Digital and social media
Singh has long been known for his use of social media, and has drawn attention for his frequent and lighthearted posts on TikTok.
Now the party is launching a new “digital mobilization team” for the campaign that will be run “exclusively” by Gen Z and millennial organizers who are mostly racialized women, said Amneet Singh, the party’s director of digital operations and a longtime friend of the NDP leader.
The party has also set up what Amneet Singh called a “texting community,” where people can send messages to Jagmeet Singh and get responses from him through a platform called Community.
“We’re looking to bring people into our movement and to be a part of it,” he said, contrasting that vision with traditional political pitches that offer policies and ask for votes.
“It has to be more meaningful and deep and thoughtful,” he said.
Key players Campaign director Jennifer Howard:
A former finance minister with the NDP in Manitoba, Howard has been Singh’s chief of staff since 2019, and will lead the party’s campaign strategy.
National director Anne McGrath: A veteran NDPer who worked with Layton’s successor, Thomas Mulcair, as well with as former Alberta premier Rachel Notley. Among other things, McGrath is responsible for party finances and will advise on election strategy.
Senior adviser to the leader Marie Della Mattia: The veteran campaigner is back for her second federal election with the NDP. She is reprising her role as Singh’s on-the-road adviser.
Director of communications George Soule: A longtime NDP operative in Ottawa and Alberta, Soule is returning from work with the United Steelworkers union to run the federal campaign’s communications branch from its election war room.