On spent forces

The Pundits' Guide offers a breakdown of party and candidate spending in last year's set of byelections. And the contrast between the parties which appear to have maxed out their potential and those which have room to grow may offer some important signs as to who has the best chance to improve its standing in future elections:

Only Conservative Party candidates spent > 75% of the candidate spending limits in each of the 3 ridings, and in total its candidates spent some 95% of the limit.

The Bloc spent >75% in 2 of the 3 ridings (total spending of 86% of the candidate limits), while the Liberals and NDP clearly concentrated on Outremont.

In addition to the $254,876 that could be spent by candidates across the 3 ridings, a registered party fielding 3 candidates in that set of by-elections could itself spend an additional $171,997 in support of those campaigns. The amounts spent are reported in Part 3a of the Registered Parties annual returns (you can find the details here, at the Elections Canada site, for the 2007 By-Elections; select the party you're interested in from their drop-down list once you get there).

Again, the Conservative Party spent 92% of its party by-election spending limit. However, interestingly it split the spending mainly between Roberval – Lac-Saint-Jean and Saint-Hyacinthe – Bagot, the two seats where they wound up being more competitive.

The Liberal Party spent just under half (46%) of its party by-election spending limit; and all but $3800 or so of that was put into Outremont.

The NDP spent 12% of its by-election spending limit, split equally between the three ridings.

Neither the Bloc nor the Green Party reporting (sic) any party-level spending on the three by-election campaigns.

So what do those numbers say about the parties' positions in Quebec? First off, it's worth noting that the Cons' reasonably strong performances in the two ridings previously held by the Bloc were both based on pouring in significantly more money than the Bloc did. And in Outremont, the Cons managed to see a drop in their share of the vote despite spending nearly as much as the other main parties. Which suggests that the Cons may have relatively little room for growth - particularly in a general election setting where the Bloc is better able to balance out the expenditures involved.

In contrast, the returns offer up what strikes me as a surprising fact about Thomas Mulcair's win in Outremont, as it was apparently achieved even at a financial disadvantage against his main competition. While Mulcair spent slightly more than Jocelyn Coulon at the candidate level, the Libs managed to outspend the NDP by tens of thousands of dollars of party money even while losing what was supposed to be a safe riding.

And that may be particularly significant based on the imminent by-election in neighbouring Westmount-Ville Marie. While the NDP once again faces the challenge of attacking a former Lib stronghold, the expense numbers suggest that the NDP actually has room to improve somewhat on its relative performance in Outremont - either if the NDP increases its own expenditures to match the Libs' level of spending, or if the Libs themselves can't afford to spend the kind of money they did in an effort to stop Mulcair.