By-election aftermath

Obviously the most important result of last night's by-elections was the fact that both Saskatoon Riversdale and Regina Douglas Park stayed in NDP hands. But let's take a closer look at last night's results to see what they may mean for each of the parties involved.

For the NDP, the percentages are probably close to the best that could have been expected. With all parties focused entirely on the by-elections, the outcome figured to be closer than would normally be the case in a general election setting. And indeed the percentages narrowed far less in both of the ridings decided last night than in the 2008 Cumberland by-election - signalling that the NDP has managed to substantially improve its lock on traditional party turf compared to just a year ago.

That said, there seems to have been at least some disconnect between the NDP's expectations and the actual outcome. In Regina Douglas Park in particular, the Lingenfelter campaign spent much of the latter part of the campaign trumpeting record numbers of signs and identified votes. But those obviously didn't translate entirely into votes when it counted - and in fact the latter number actually exceeded the NDP's final tally at the polls.

So there are a couple of lessons to be taken from last night's results. First, the NDP needs to stay focused on the final result rather than taking too much pride in side projects like sign totals. And second, the voter identification process could probably use some tuning up - likely including both additional verification of identified supporters, and a stronger push to ensure that identified voters are kept involved throughout the campaign.

For the Sask Party, the by-elections served primarily as a test as to whether a combination of any remaining honeymoon period for the Wall government and a fairly negative air campaign against Dwain Lingenfelter could create enough of a head start to make up for the NDP's advantage in feet on the ground. And the answer there was a resounding "no", even with the Sask Party able to focus on only a single riding in each of Regina and Saskatoon.

But that doesn't mean the by-elections were a total waste for the Sask Party. Presumably the anti-Lingenfelter ads will serve Wall's purposes in framing the NDP for future elections even if it wasn't enough to put either of its candidates over the top this time out. And the absence of any meaningful Lib vote (by choice in Regina Douglas Park, but not in Saskatoon Riversdale) looks to have operated to the Sask Party's favour in both ridings, hinting at some changes in the dynamics likely to affect Saskatchewan's urban results in 2011.

To the extent any candidate could claim a stronger performance than expected, that honour would have to go to the Greens' Victor Lau in Regina Douglas Park, who increased his raw vote total from 2007 and nearly doubled his share of the vote. But even that result leaves Lau far from any serious contention for the seat - and it's doubtful that circumstances will get any better for the Greens in 2011, particularly if the nuclear question has been decided one way or the other by then. (Meanwhile, the Greens' campaign in Saskatoon Riversdale was a fairly thorough flop, as Tobi-Dawne Smith took a lower share of the vote than the previous Green candidate.)

Finally, there are the Liberals - or what's left of them. On paper, they seemed to have an opportunity to put themselves back on the political map in Saskatoon Riversdale: for their first by-election under a reasonably well-hyped leader, they managed to recruit a candidate who won over 34% of the vote in an adjacent riding under the Sask Party's banner in 2007. And of course most of the Libs' seeming strength should have been in Saskatoon, where former leader David Karwacki was the only Lib candidate to top 16% in a riding which featured a full slate of opponents.

But instead of building on any combination of her own history and any Lib machinery in Saskatoon, Eileen Gelowitz barely nosed ahead of Smith for a distant third place with 2.6% of the vote. And that complete absence of a party capable of assembling even a minimally successful campaign even under the most friendly of conditions would figure to make it next to impossible for the Libs to recruit similar candidates in the future.