As this very confusing, contentious — and, at times, downright nasty — 2022 Vancouver civic election draws to close, Election Day but three days away, your vote tabulated in the machine where you may have voted in advance, the vote set to be announced before 8:30pm on Saturday, there is very little that is certain.
Strangely, for the first time ever, there were no in-person Vancouver School Board all-candidates meetings. Also strange: for the first time in decades, downtown’s Christ Church Cathedral did not hold its always well-attended last Sunday before the election Mayoral debate. This year, the Last Candidate Standing event was as joyously raucous as ever — with Vancouver City Councillor Michael Wiebe emerging as the winner of the woefully under-attended Saturday afternoon event.
Now for another piece of alarming news: In 2022, we are experiencing the lowest advance poll turnout, ever — as of this date, fewer than half of the number of voters have cast a ballot at an advance poll after five days of advance voting, on October 1st, 5th, 8th and 11th than was the case at this point in October 2018.
If advance poll voter turnout holds to form as a predictor for Election Day and overall turnout, given that in 2018, 176,450 eligible voters cast a ballot, for a 39.4% voter turnout in the last Vancouver civic election, in 2022, we could conceivably be looking at a 2022 eligible voter turnout of fewer than 90,000 voters who’ll make their way to the polls, hovering around just over 20% of eligible voters. When there’s so much on the line for the electorate in 2022, how can that be happening?
Dan Fumano reported in The Vancouver Sun yesterday that at this late date, 40% of probable Vancouver voters remain undecided, with a new poll suggesting that many voters are dissatisfied with City Hall and want change. “But it’s far from certain how that will actually play out on election day,” writes Fumano.
While the new results show ABC Vancouver candidate Ken Sim in a “compelling lead” ahead of Stewart and TEAM for a Livable Vancouver’s Colleen Hardwick, the choices of the as-yet undecided voters “could move any of the candidates into the winning spot,” the Leger poll conducted for The Vancouver Sun says.
Steve Mossop, a Vancouver-based executive vice-president at Leger, the national research and polling firm behind the survey, said he isn’t predicting at this point who will win this weekend. Sim is leading in the point-in-time captured by the poll, Mossop said, “but it’s a tenuous lead when you have 40% undecided.”
“It’s about the mobilization of voters, to get them to actually show up. How strong are the strong supporters and how weak are the detractors? Sometimes in municipal elections, that ends up being the name of the game,” Mossop said.
Even given the above, most pundits, election watchers and party campaign managers are predicting a record low 28% turnout at the polls in 2022 — which, in and of itself, is incredibly disappointing — but barely over 20%, with 40% of voters undecided at this late date in the election cycle? What part of the word democracy and citizen engagement are Vancouver voters not understanding in 2022?
Sure there are 15 names on the Mayoral ballot, and 60 more names of candidates running for Vancouver City Council — which Keith Baldrey on Global BC’s evening news broadcast indicated may be turning voters off.
Hhheeelllloooo, that’s why VanRamblings is here: to provide you with insight into who’s running, which candidates are worthy of your consideration, who the “stars” are who have emerged during 2022’s civic election campaign, where the Mayoral candidates stand on the two most important issues in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election — affordable housing and public safety — and much much more.
Several of the ten civic parties which are offering candidates in this year’s Vancouver municipal election are conducting exit polling. Here’s what representatives from each of the main parties have told VanRamblings …
- Voters are voting slate only; that’s called plumping your vote. A mass of voters are voting, say, for ABC Vancouver, and ABC Vancouver alone, and not casting a vote for any candidates running with a rival civic party, so as not to “dilute” their vote. VanRamblings has been told that holds true for voters casting a ballot for Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together six-candidate slate and, most specifically, with Colleen Hardwick and her TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver slate of candidates;
- Voters are selecting only a few candidates to mark their ballot for, candidates they know and support, and only these three or four candidates they have selected;
- Exit polling has shown that a number of voters are casting a ballot for all of the Council incumbents, because they’re passingly familiar with these candidates;
- Many eligible voters have chosen not to vote for any of the candidates running for office to gain a seat around the Vancouver School Board decision-making table, nor are they casting a vote for any Park Board candidates listed on their voting ballot.
Internal party polling conducted throughout the election, continuing through recent days, suggests that the Green Party of Vancouver is in trouble with the electorate, with incumbent, 11-year Green Vancouver City Councillor Adriane Carr the party’s only hope for holding onto a seat on City Council, with incumbents Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe far out of contention to be elected to a second term of office.
The race has tightened in recent days, with TEAM’s Colleen Hardwick in a statistical dead heat with Mayor Kennedy Stewart. This is anyone’s race to win come Saturday.
In the final three days of Campaign 2022 for Vancouver City Council, both the Mayor’s race and the race to gain a seat on Vancouver City Council have begun to heat up. Most political observers have been saying for weeks now, positing throughout the campaign, that this year’s Vancouver municipal election will come down to getting the vote out on Election Day, Saturday, October 15th, and energizing voters in the final three days of the 2022 campaign for Vancouver civic office.
Here are plausible scenarios as to what might occur come this Saturday evening …
The Forum Research poll above shows that TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver Mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, and her six Council candidate team to be very much in contention. In reading the poll above, voters have become aware that support for incumbent Mayor Kennedy Stewart has dropped like a stone in the past month.
Mayor Kennedy Stewart has dropped 11 points in the past month.
- Colleen Hardwick and TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver. Just a month ago, Kennedy Stewart enjoyed the support of 35% of eligible Vancouver voters. Today that support has dropped by 11 percentage points, which places him in a near dead heat with Colleen Hardwick. Meanwhile, support for ABC Vancouver Mayoralty candidate Ken Sim has risen by 4 percentage points. Given the volatility in the polling — not to mention the volatility of the voters in these final three days of Campaign 2022 — and particularly given Hardwick’s neighbourhood-focused campaign that has, throughout, opposed the construction of towers within family neighbourhoods across every region of Vancouver, there’s every reason to believe that Colleen Hardwick and her six-member TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver Council candidate slate could emerge as come-from-behind victors soon after polls close this upcoming Saturday evening.
- Mayor Kennedy Stewart and his six-candidate Forward Together team could sweep the civic election for Vancouver City Council. How is that possible you ask, given what you see in the Forum Research poll above? Make no mistake, British Columbia’s provincial NDP are pulling out all the stops to see to it that Mayor Kennedy Stewart, and all 6 Forward Together Council candidates, complemented by the 4 OneCity Vancouver candidates for Council constitute the full 2022 – 2026 Vancouver City Council. The NDP have turned over their invaluable voter and membership lists to Forward Together and OneCity — phone banks are a buzzin’. There’s a get-out-the-progressive-vote campaign initiated by the provincial NDP the likes of which you’ve never seen. Doesn’t matter what the polls show, all that matters — particularly given this will be a low voter turnout civic election — is that you ensure your voter base gets out to the polls this Saturday to cast their ballot for Forward Together and OneCity, in the most intensive GOTV campaign Vancouver has ever witnessed.
- ABC Vancouver sweeps the election, running on their law-and-order platform, with billionaires Chip Wilson and the Rocky Mountaineer’s Peter Armstrong spending millions — millions more than any other Vancouver civic party — while skirting provincial election regulations after having established a political action committee (PAC) that has spent millions on television, radio, social media and ethnic press advertising, all to ensure a Ken Sim victory on Saturday night, joined by ABC Vancouver Council candidates, incumbents Sarah Kirby-Yung, Rebecca Bligh and Lisa Dominato, who’ll be joined by “newcomers” Mike Klassen — a rock solid lock to be elected to Council — and fellow ABC Vancouver Council candidates, Peter Meiszner and Brian Montague. The icing on the cake for the ABC Vancouver campaign: when Peter Armstrong left the Non-Partisan Association, he took the NPA voter and membership lists with him. In addition, Kevin Falcon’s B.C. Liberal party is only too happy to turn over the party’s provincial membership and voters list to the ABC Vancouver campaign — which lists don’t count for much on Vancouver’s east side, but make a world of difference on getting out the vote on Vancouver’s west side.
As always, election night results will be skewed by the overwhelming turnout of voters in Dunbar, Kerrisdale, Point Grey and Shaughnessy, who vote to protect their class interests. Whereas turnout east of Main averages 14%, in Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy — not to mention, Dunbar and Point Grey — that figures tops 90% of eligible voters making their way to the polls to cast their ballot.
All of the above said, to confuse you even more, most civic election political observers believe that come Saturday evening, in all likelihood Vancouver voters will have elected another Pizza Council — with three incumbents, the Greens’ Adriane Carr, ABC Vancouver’s Sarah Kirby-Yung and COPE’s Jean Swanson topping the polls, followed by ABC Vancouver’s Mike Klassen, and TEAM’s Bill Tieleman.
Who’ll fill out the remaining five spots on Vancouver City Council? Most pundits believe some combination of Forward Together’s Tessica Truong and Dulcy Anderson, the Greens’ Pete Fry, ABC Vancouver incumbents Lisa Dominato and Rebecca Bligh.
Beyond that: NPA newcomer, Arezo Zarrabian — who has impressed the socks off of anyone who’s heard her speak — incumbent NPA Councillor Melissa De Genova and her fellow NPA running mate, Ken Charko; TEAM’s outstanding candidate, Sean Nardi, and the Greens’ incredibly sympathetic incumbent Vancouver City Councillor, Michael Wiebe.
OneCity Vancouver incumbent Councillor Christine Boyle — although her polling numbers have been off for much of the campaign — could surprise everyone by gaining a seat on Council for a second term. If there’s a God in the heavens, TEAM’s Cleta Brown oughta find herself elected to City Council on Saturday evening, as must be the case with Green candidate extraordinaire, Stephanie Smith.
