5 lessons for P.E.I. political parties from the Green win in District 11

When Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker learned his party's candidate had come out ahead in the District 11 byelection, he addressed the large, boisterous crowd gathered at Bar1911 to watch the results roll in.

"I think we just shook P.E.I. politics to its core," he said, eliciting huge cheers from the crowd.

He's certainly not the only person to have attached a certain political import to his party's win. Another roughly two years (give or take), and the next full provincial election may show whether Island politics was indeed shaken by last Monday's win.

But in the meantime, the winners, losers, and anyone else who wants to run should consider the lessons to be learned from D11.

If party ties matter less, candidate quality matters more

According to the Liberal member of the Island Morning political panel, Hannah Bell won because the byelection was about the quality of the candidates, which put Bell ahead in the eyes of voters.

When voters are prepared to pay attention to more than just red, blue, green or orange, the power of a candidate to win over voters on the doorstep matters more than ever. And because Island electoral districts are so small, candidates could potentially talk to every single voter during the course of a campaign.

What can a party do to make sure it has the best possible candidate in the race? On the night he was named PC leader, James Aylward spoke about all the people wanting to run for the PCs in the next election. But Melissa Hilton was the only candidate in the race to represent the party in D11. So a contested nomination might help parties test the mettle of those vying for the job.

The Liberals had two candidates in the running but held their nomination so quickly there was no time for candidates to prove themselves by getting out there to sign up new party members to support them on nomination night.

Promise a new school? Prepare to be disappointed

This lesson for the MacLauchlan Liberals is a freebie from the Binns Tories, who went down to defeat in 2007. Some watchers will tell you the turning point came with the sudden, unexpected promise of a new school for Stratford — the thinking being that Island voters can smell desperation, and don't reward it.

The MacLauchlan Liberals had the advantage of the Public Schools Branch having only just asked for a new Sherwood Elementary. But getting called out by the Liberal Speaker of the legislature for leaking details of the budget to try to maximize their political mileage from the school announcement probably didn't help.

Apparently it's not just about the economy

"It's the economy, stupid," was a bullet-point reminder for campaign workers during Bill Clinton's first run for the White House. 

The MacLauchlan government has done something the Liberals promised to do for a decade: balanced the provincial operating budget. They hammer home the message day in, day out that the economy is doing incredibly well. 

Perhaps it's not a coincidence that the area where the Green Party is arguably the strongest is also the area where the Liberals are currently weakest: electoral reform. (And election finance reform, and MLA severance reform.)

It seems a strong economy isn't enough to win over voters with a taste for change. It's also worth noting the Clinton-era line about the economy was one of three bullet points that helped him win. Another was, "Don't forget about health care."

When do parties hold leadership reviews?

When Rob Lantz failed to win the 2015 election for the PC Party of which he'd just become leader, it triggered an automatic leadership review which would have been held within 26 months if he hadn't stepped down.

Any member of the provincial NDP can call for a leadership review at an annual convention, but it doesn't appear anyone has since 2015.

That year, NPD Leader Mike Redmond came in a respectable third running in District 3. Last week he came in a distant fourth in D11. His 9.3 per cent vote share is less than Andrew Watts' tally running in the district for the party two years earlier.

Redmond may indeed continue to be the best person to lead the provincial NDP. There doesn't seem anyone in the party prepared to challenge that. If that's the case, it may at least help to call for a show of hands in his support at the next convention.

The party recently changed its constitution to require a vote of confidence in the leader to be held by secret ballot at each annual spring convention.

How does a small party become a big party?

Peter Bevan-Baker and the P.E.I. Green Party calculated that if they put a significant part of their resources into his district in 2015 they could win the seat. In total, more than a quarter of the party's budget was spent getting him elected in Kellys Cross-Cumberland (which was still well below the district spending limit, and less than the Liberals spent there).

In the D11 byelection, the party was again able to focus on winning just one seat.

Last year, the P.E.I. Liberals raised 34 times more money in political contributions than the P.E.I. Green Party. Put another way, for every dollar the Liberals brought in, the Greens took in three cents.

Following their D11 win, the Greens are talking about maybe forming government someday. In the next election, they'll either have to learn how to raise more money, find a way to win while being absurdly out-spent, or decide how much they can grow without spreading themselves too thin, and risking what they've achieved thus far.

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