A Fundamental Change In The Way Election Campaign Races Are Run?

TheyShootThoseMetaphoricalHorses

Don'tTheyVille


Not sure about you all, but I've always thought of Canadian election campaigns as one continuous horse race where the steeds start out slow, pick up the pace in the backstretch, and then start jockeying and sprinting furiously as they round the final turn and head for home.

And nothing represents that mad dash for the finish line better than when the party leaders go bonkers in a campaign's final days and start crisscrossing the country in an effort to hit as many strategic regions and ridings as possible.

But Greg Fingas, writing over at his most excellent blog 'Accidental Deliberations', thinks that the nature of such races might be changing:

...The provincial elections held in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic have generally seen both a continuation of the trend toward increased advance voting, and a substantial increase in the use of mail-in ballots. But by the time the votes have been counted, the overall turnout hasn't been all that strong.

And that combination of increased early voting and decreased election-day turnout raises important considerations for (a) campaign.

First, it means that persuasion in the opening days of the campaign will actually serve to lock in votes early - or conversely, that a failure to reach people by that stage could put them out of reach for the duration of the campaign. And so even to the extent a party might otherwise be tempted to hold off on messages or platforms to reduce the time in which they can be picked apart, the balance tilts strongly in favour of ensuring that early voters have a chance to see what's on offer.

By the same token, the events which would normally be seen as shaping the outcome of an election - from debates to gaffes to movements behind a particular leader - are all likely to have comparatively less effect than in previous elections due to the votes which have already been banked by the time they would take place.

At the same time, while those most motivated to vote need to be reached with persuasive messages early in the campaign, the voters left to be accessed on election day are then likely to be those who have put relatively little thought into how to vote as a matter of both partisan support and process...

So.

Instead of one long, linear horse race, it appears that we may be moving towards something more akin to the Tour de France, with multiple stages made up of sprints, grueling climbs and daredevil descents, each with their own 'prize' of votes of a different kind.

Which could be fun, especially if it screws up the ability of pollsters and pols figure out what buttons to push and pull for the duration.

At least for the moment, because you know for darned sure that if this change from horses to bicycles really is happening those very same pol(lster)s are already hard at work doing their best to re-slice and dice the demographics so that they can sock away votes at each stage of the new fangled race.

OK?

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GFingas regularly posts really thoughtful media/blog round-ups from a progressive politics point-of-view that are always worth having a look at....Here's a recent example.

Image and subheader?....This!


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