Bye, elections

Now that the by-elections in London North Centre and Repentigny are done with, there's plenty for each of the four top cross-Canada parties both to draw on for the future, and to worry about for the present.

The biggest winners on the night were the Libs, who fended off three high-profile candidates in the midst of their own leadership race to hold onto London North Centre. But as John has pointed out, the news was nowhere near as good for them in Repentigny, where their candidate dropped all the way to 4th place with 6% of the vote. Which isn't to say that any Canada-wide party is going to be challenging for that riding anytime, but it does indicate that the Libs have some serious damage repair to do in La Belle Province.

For the Cons, the positive spin is that they didn't really lose any ground from the general election. But their attempts to paint Repentigny as a two-way horse race were shown to be utterly laughable, and the London North Centre results pose even bigger problems for the Cons. After all, the race went from one with a high-profile Lib candidate and a relatively unknown Con to just the opposite, without any apparent impact on the proportional results...which suggests either that the Cons don't have any room left to grow, or that PMS needs to seriously rethink the muzzle tactic.

For the NDP, the London North Centre result is naturally a huge disappointment...but it also reflects the party's need to better present its candidates going forward. While there was far more to Megan Walker's candidacy than the dispute over Glen Pearson's dubious communications director, that incident was used to brand Walker as a cold and cynical candidate - which is a fairly deadly perception for any NDP nominee. The good news, however, is that with the Cons failing to gain any ground, it doesn't look like the threat of a Harper majority will be credible enough to cause a Lib surge anytime soon...and of course moving up into third in Repentigny (albeit without increasing the NDP's own percentage) is something to build on as well.

Finally, the Greens have much to be proud of in pulling off a strong second-place finish in London North Centre. But that final outcome also reflects the uphill battle the party will be facing in every riding. Even with the party's efforts focused entirely on exactly the type of vote-splitting riding the Greens figure to be their best chance, and with May receiving tons of positive press (including from the eventual winner), they still weren't able to win a seat in Parliament. And it's hard to see how May will have an easier time in a general election with the party's resources spread across the country.

In sum, the by-election (like the last couple of general elections) ultimately seems to have been more a rejection of all parties to at least some extent than an unmitigated victory for any of them. And it's the parties who generate the best ideas after going back to the drawing board who will ultimately gain the most from the experience.

Update: More post-mortem from Dinner Table Donts and Devin Johnston.