To give an idea of how impressive Elizabeth May's win is, in the 2010 UK General Election the UK Green leader Caroline Lucas managed to get elected in her seat of Brighton Pavilion. But she only managed 31.3% of the vote and did not large lead in the votes. This was a seat the Greens had managed more than 20% in the previous election and were not miles out of winning. The win by Caroline Lucas was considered stunningly good for Green in a First Past the Post election.
So lets look at the detailed results.
- Elizabeth May Green 31,900 (+25,158) 46.26% (+35.81)
- Gary Lunn Conservative 24,541 (-3,447) 35.59% (-7.84)
- Edith Loring-Kuhanga NDP 8,198 (+4,531) 11.88% (+6.19%)
- Renee Hetherington Liberal 4.314 (-21,053) 6.25% (-33.11)
- TOTAL Votes 68,953 (+4,505)
The total vote went up 4500 voters in this election, that is a significant increase.
I did not think it was realistic, but it turns out many Conservatives did vote for Elizabeth May. I was hearing about more and more of them as the election went on. I was also getting reports of the Orange Crush in Saanich-Gulf Islands. I work with what I have access to.
The 46.26% Elizabeth May is stunningly high percentage, almost unprecedented globally for Greens. I will point out that Elizabeth May had to achieve something like 45% to win, based on how well Greens have done in Canada and globally, this did not seem like an achievable target. Also the Green polling numbers nationally were doing badly. I did see the tide was moving here way had it a 60% Lunn, 40% May odds at the end.
I am stunned at how low the Liberal vote fell, I knew they would likely come fourth, but it never occurred to me that they would note break 10%. A scenario in which the NDP and Liberals combined could not get at least 25% of the vote seemed outside of the realm of realistic.
Factoring in the increased vote, the collapse of the Liberals and Conservatives voting for May, a scenario happened in which she won.
I have to commend the Greens on how well the campaigned for Elizabeth May, this really was a serious campaign to win and the succeeded. The bittersweet part for the Greens is the large drop of their vote in the rest of the country.
To give you an idea how concentrated the vote was in one riding, 5.54% of the votes cast for the Green party in Canada were cast for Elizabeth May. To give you an idea how big her vote was, she got more votes in one riding than all 28 Greens in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. She was only 3000 vote short of what all 32 Green candidates in Atlantic Canada managed at the polls.
One final note, Elizabeth May polled more votes than any other candidate on Vancouver Island.
4 comments:
I was impressed by May's ability to turn this into a 2-way race after Briony Penn had attempted to do the same and lost.
I think much of it has to do with the fact there is still a lot of distrust of the Liberal Party among centre and centre-right voters on the Peninsula. I know of rural and conservative voters who never liked Lunn but would never vote for a Liberal (such as Penn in the last election). These same voters don't harbour a distrust of the Greens and many traditionally conservative voters were happy to vote Green.
Another important factor in May's stunning victory was her campaign's success in encouraging voter turnout. Many young or apathetic residents who wouldn't normally vote were inspired to in this election. This can be seen in SGI's abnormally high (75.2%) voter turnout.
Elizabeth May won because Elizabeth May won. Everything had to do with who she is and little with political circumstances. One more important factor: she spoke to the right audience. She could probably find no other Canadian riding that could have been more receptive to her message. Conservatives also voted for her because, contary to popular belief, they too have hearts and they can be touched by compassion when they see it. When a political leader finally comes up and starts making sense, people are willing to take her relevance seriously. And these are your numbers!
On Elizabeth May being the biggest win for the Greens: note that the green party of Sweden has 25 MP's with over 7% of the votes.
Since the voting system is different, however, it may be true as you say that Elizabeth May was the single best win for the Greens globally.
Just my two cents on that.
Otherwise I'm stunned both by the low liberal turnout and by Elizabeth May as you said - but also that Harper got that many votes nationally still.
Canada still has a big job to do with handling Alberta.
I'm not surprised at all. There was a huge movement of people who decided that the Greens deserved a seat in the Commons, regardless of our regular affiliations. I'm certainly one of them; I even felt guilty that I didn't support the candidate I actually preferred.
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