In 2015, as a Liberal wave swept Justin Trudeau to a majority government, the Conservative candidate in the riding of Carleton barely managed to avoid being swamped on election day.
That candidate, Pierre Poilievre, won by just 705 votes over his Liberal rival whose support, like many Liberals across the country, was surging in the final week. The totals in Carleton: 42,428 votes cast with 46 per cent going to Poilievre. His Liberal rival, Chris Rogers, was less than three points back at 44.3 per cent.
But close as election day was, it was not so close in the advance polls. Among the 15,407 ballots cast in Carleton’s advance polls, like the ones across the country this weekend, Poilievre scored 49.6 per cent of the vote, well ahead of the Liberal at 41.5 per cent.
That trend is typical for many elections, both federal and provincial, in which small-c conservative parties tend to outperform in advance polls versus election day polls.
Doug Finley, the late former senator, managed Stephen Harper’s early campaigns and preached the benefits of a strong ground game. For Finley, a well organized get-out-the-vote effort that gets as many supporters to a ballot box as soon as a poll opens is vital to overcome a perceived advantage Liberals have with the so-called “air war” on television newscasts, newspapers and mainstream media.
Finley’s disciples from the early 2000s have spread themselves across the country, many running municipal, provincial and federal campaigns on those same core beliefs.
Finley’s heirs include Jenni Byrne, now running Poilievre’s campaign for prime minister and Nick Koolsbergen who, as campaign director for the UCP in Alberta in 2019, pounded the advance polls in that province to make Jason Kenney premier.
All of that is something to consider as Canada interprets the remarkable advance poll turnout in the 45th general election. Elections Canada said more than 2 million people cast ballots on Good Friday, the first day of advance polls, a one-day record. To put that in perspective, that’s better than 10 per cent of all votes cast in the 2021 election.
So what does it all mean?
Teneycke, reached by phone Sunday afternoon, said the advance poll surge is likely a sign we’re into a high-turnout election and those are the kinds of elections where the kind of strong ground game typical of small-c conservative campaigns may matter less than in a low-turnout election where victories are won on the margins.
It will be impossible to form conclusions about the partisan bent of this advance poll surge until after the votes are counted on April 28 but one reasonable observation seems appropriate. When Liberal leader Mark Carney says, as he did in Calgary on April 10, that “this is the most consequential election of our lifetime,” it would appear many voters agree and were eager to participate as soon as possible.
That doesn’t mean those eager voters are all necessarily Liberal voters. Voters in Conservative strongholds like Poilievre’s own riding of Carleton or in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, Lethbridge and Edmonton West have all written to tell me of lineups in their districts on Friday, where it took 45 minutes to an hour to get to the voting booth.
“Never have I seen such a turn out for an advance poll,” said a correspondent in Bruce County, where Conservative Alex Ruff is seeking re-election.
But also in Vancouver East, long considered one of the safest NDP seats in the country, the Good Friday wait to vote, a reader writes, was two hours. Same thing in Toronto Centre, one of the safest Liberal seats in the country.
In Grimsby, Ont., a reader was surprised to see so many people out to vote in an advance poll. “First time in my life I have ever stood in line this long to vote,” he wrote. “Not a problem. We are voting for every Canadian’s future.”
David Akin is chief political correspondent for Global News. He is covering his seventh federal election.