Stephen Andrew Launches Campaign to be Mayor of Victoria

This morning at 10 am Stephen Andrew launched his campaign to be the next mayor of Victoria;    He had about 50 supporters backing him and was watched about 40 members of the public and the media.   This may not sound like a large crowd, but for a municipal race it is actually pretty good.

I had heard a rumour that he might be in the race since last Friday and had it confirmed Tuesday evening.   He is entering the race very late.  Normally I would dismiss anyone starting on the last day of nominations as not being a serious candidate, but Stephen Andrew is a different situation because he is already a well known person in the region from his time in the broadcast media.

His entry makes for four strong serious candidates for mayor of Victoria.  As far as I know this is the first in Victoria history this has happened.  It is too early to be certain what the impact he will have on the race and what chance he has to win but I make the following observations:

• His entry is bad for Ida Chong because he will take a significant number of votes from her
• His impact on Ida Chong's vote harms the message from the Dean Fortin campaign that voting for Lisa Helps splits the vote and would then elect Ida Chong
• His entry into the race removes Lisa Helps' position as the only serious candidate outside of the traditional partisan divide in BC politics
• With four strong serious candidates in the race, the City of Victoria mayor's race will take up a lot of the local election media coverage which will benefit Stephen Andrew because he can present himself better in broadcast media than the other three

Here is a video I made with my phone of the campaign launch