This is a high level summary of campaign results in ridings identified by the Catch 22 campaign. Over the coming weekend, we’ll publish an editorial. Then in a few weeks we’ll put out a more detailed look at our campaign – strengths and weaknesses, what worked and what didn’t etc. Once that is done, the campaign will be wrapped up.
Obviously, we did not get the overall results we were looking for. With less than a 2% increase in the popular vote, Harper was successful at boosting his seat count by 25 and forming a “majority” with the support of less than 40% of voters.
Here are a few stats from our campaign.
Number of ridings on Catch 22 list – 60
Number of first place finishes for opposition in C22 identified ridings – 15 (including 2 “too close to call ridings” won by opposition)
- Number of Conservatives defeated from Catch 22 list – 4 (Surrey North, Saanich-Gulf Islands, Beauport-Limiloi, Pontiac)
- Number of opposition ridings successfully defended – 11 (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, Welland, Malpeque, Burnaby-Douglas, New Westminister-Coquitlam, Edmonton-Strathcona, London Fanshawe, Western Arctic, Guelph, Kingston and the Islands, Random-Burin-St. Georges)
Number of second place finishes – 34
Number of third place finishes for Catch 22 candidates – 8 (Huron Bruce, Miramichi, Fredericton, Edmonton Centre, Brant, St. John, Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere du Loup)
Number of “too close to call” ridings won by the Conservatives – 3 (Essex, Kenora, Nunavut)
Number of ridings where recommendations were flat out wrong – 2 (Newton North Delta where the C22 recommended Liberal incumbent (31.5) was defeated by the NDP (33.4%) with Con right behind (31.3%). Both the Cons and NDP were within 10% of the Lib incumbent in 2008. Catch 22 should have stayed out of this one. In Montmagny-L’Islet— Kamouraska—Rivière-du Loup – the NDP beat the the Con by just 9 votes. We recommended the Bloc candidate to defeat the Con. after the Cons took it from the Bloc in a 2009 by-election. More on Quebec in the detailed report.
Sincerely
Catch 22 team