Lessons from 2014: Is Glen Murray's early mayoral race lead insurmountable, or ephemeral?

Now that the first poll of the 2022 Winnipeg mayoral race suggests Glen Murray has an early and enormous lead, some voters may be tempted to conclude the remaining three months of this campaign won't matter very much.

That would be a mistake.

What happens over the summer during a Winnipeg election year does not necessarily translate into the fall, especially when the election is a wide-open race with no incumbent candidate.

The last time Winnipeg had such a race, many Winnipeggers were convinced Judy Wasylycia-Leis was going to be the city's next mayor.

In 2014, then mayor Sam Katz had decided 10 years in office were enough, especially after stumbling through a third term plagued with scandals involving Winnipeg's police headquarters, new fire-paramedic stations and major real estate transactions.

Into the political vacuum stepped Wasylycia-Leis, a former NDP MP and MLA, taking her second crack at becoming mayor in as many elections.

That summer, she was the candidate to beat. A Probe Research poll provided evidence for that assertion, as it suggested Wasylycia-Leis enjoyed the support of 39 per cent of decided Winnipeg voters.

That same August 2014 poll placed former city councillor Gord Steeves in second place, with 23 per cent. Privacy lawyer Brian Bowman was in third place, at 16 per cent.

While there was jubilance among some members of the political left, Probe Research principals Curtis Brown and Scott MacKay warned that campaigns matter.

And did they ever. The Steeves campaign imploded after it veered far to the right. Bowman's fortunes took off, as voters decided they preferred a shiny penny to a couple of well-worn coins.

Bowman wound up winning the 2014 mayoral race with 48 per cent of the vote. Wasylycia-Leis finished a distant second, with 25 per cent. A then-unknown academic named Robert-Falcon Ouellette finished third, with 16 per cent.

Steeves ended up in fourth place with a paltry nine per cent.

The 2014 example is instructive this week, when Probe Research presented 2022 mayoral-support numbers somewhat similar to that fateful poll from two elections ago.

An online Probe poll of 622 Winnipeg adults earlier this month suggests Murray, a former Winnipeg mayor, has the support of 44 per cent of decided Winnipeg voters.

St. James councillor Scott Gillingham came in second, with 16 per cent, while Ouellete, who's back for a second kick at the can, is in third with 13 per cent.

The situation is not identical to 2014, but we do have another big lead for a left-of-centre candidate over the summer in a wide-open mayoral race.

Name recognition a factor

Aaron Moore, who chairs the political science department at the University of Winnipeg, isn't willing to hand the keys to the mayor's office to Glen Murray just yet.

"This early in the campaign, I think a lot of people weren't really paying too much attention," Moore said of the context for Probe's July poll.

"So this is more a reflection of Murray's name recognition than anything else, and the fact that he's been a bit more exposed in the media than a lot of the other candidates in the last month."

Murray is a very familiar name to Winnipeggers, after spending nine years as the city councillor for Fort Rouge and then another six in the mayor's office.

Probe Research principal Mary Agnes Welch agrees name recognition is a major factor boosting Murray right now.

"People aren't totally engaged in this race yet. There's always that magic date of post-Labour Day when we really start paying attention," she said.

Another piece of evidence voters are not yet engaged is Ouellette's strong third-place showing. The former Winnipeg Centre MP has not held a single news conference since he registered his campaign in May.

He nonetheless bested a number of candidates who have ventured into the public eye far more frequently — most notably business consultant Jenny Motkaluk, social entrepreneurship advocate Shaun Loney and Wilderness Supply owner Rick Shone, all of whom held well-attended campaign launches.

'Right-of-centre picture' still murky

On its own, a lack of engagement doesn't spell doom for Glen Murray. Welch points out the former mayor appears to be attractive to a potentially winning combination of south Winnipeg residents, older Winnipeggers and women.

"To have that big a lead this far out is a pretty enviable position for the former mayor to be in," Welch said.

That lead is not insurmountable. There remains time for right-of-centre voters to coalesce around one candidate.

That could be Gillingham, a red Tory who hugs the centre. It could be Motkaluk, who has expressed some views that place her further to the right.

It could also be Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood Coun. Kevin Klein, a new entrant who lands somewhere between Gillingham and Motkaluk.

"That right-of-centre picture right now is still pretty murky," Welch said.

Murray's frontrunner status also invites more scrutiny. Eighteen years have passed since he resigned from the mayor's office in Winnipeg to make an unsuccessful run as a federal Liberal Party candidate.

Murray later moved to Toronto and briefly mused about running for mayor of that city before becoming an Ontario Liberal MPP and cabinet minister.

He then quit Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government a year before an election to work for the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank. That gig only lasted 14 months.

In 2018, Murray moved back to Winnipeg to work for a software business and declared he was done with politics. Two years later, he ran to become leader of the federal Green Party, finishing fourth in that race.

Given this varied career, it's no surprise there are people of several political stripes working on Murray's campaign. Keeping everyone in that coalition happy for three months may prove to be as much of a challenge as holding on to an early lead.

For now, however, none of Murray's challengers are catching fire the way Brian Bowman did in 2014, when he snuck up behind Wasylycia-Leis and eventually overtook her.

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