REGINA - All campaign long, SaskToday has turned to Professor of Politics and International Studies Tom McIntosh of the University of Regina for expert analysis of the campaign.
With just days to go before the polls close on Oct. 28, we check in again with McIntosh on the state of the campaign in the closing days and what we might expect on Election Night.
Thoughts about this campaign and where we're at now.
Well, it's certainly been an interesting campaign. I think it's grabbed a lot of public attention.
I think it's created a lot of talk and all of that. I don't know that the results are going to be much different now than what I expected at the beginning of the campaign, but it's been a very energetic campaign. It's garnered a lot of attention, not just in Saskatchewan, but in fact across the country.
There are people watching the campaign, which I find really interesting. It doesn't happen a lot for Saskatchewan provincial elections.
On whether the Sask Party still has the advantage going into Election Night
Yeah. There is, I think, a slim chance, and I would say it's still probably pretty slim, that the NDP could actually win the popular vote, but I don't see the seat count changing much more than what I thought it was going to be, which is it'll be probably a Sask Party majority smaller than it was and a bigger NDP opposition caucus going forward, but still a Sask Party government.
On the last number of days on the campaign trail
It's gotten a little testier and a little crankier, which may be given it's been not a terribly long campaign, but sort of intense and people are tired and all of that. There have been a couple of sort of twists to the plot. We had (Scott Moe) suddenly make a bathroom bill his number one priority, which I think took a lot of people by surprise given he never mentioned any of this during the debate as a priority at all.They were all talking health care and affordability at that time.
And then we had this strange little incident with the "gunshots that weren't gunshots" at a campaign office and it looks now like (Moe) jumped the gun on referring to these as gunshots. So there's been some odd twists like that.
And yeah, I think it has been maybe a little testier and a little nastier, more pointed, but I think that's to some extent to be expected there. You know, he wants to keep the majority as large as he can and Carla Beck is trying to push things over into forming a government herself.
How each of the parties should be feeling about election night
I suspect the NDP have had this sort of characteristic, I've said this before to other people, kind of happy-warriors attitude about the campaign and very energized and very energetic.
I think less so on the part of the Sask Party, but that's their 17-year-old government. It's kind of hard to have the same kind of enthusiasm…
I don't know that the Sask Party is dreading election night, but they're going to be anxious and nervous because, of course, I think even they would admit that they're going to lose some seats. They'll have fewer seats coming in than they had, or fewer seats coming out of the election than they had going into it.
The question will be how many will they lose. I think it will be slightly more anxious and worried on the Sask Party side, but ultimately I think they're still going to wind up most likely forming a government.
What to look for on Election Night:
For me, I think the interesting thing will be two broad categories.
How well does the NDP actually do in the two big cities? Do they get close to a sweep of the cities? And then it's those, I think what people are now calling the battleground cities, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert and Battlefords and whatnot, and to see if there's any breakthrough there and if the NDP can recapture seats that they used to hold quite a long time ago in those places. Because again, that would be a sign of growing momentum and growing support and whatnot, and then they're not just a party of Regina and Saskatoon, so that's going to be important for them. I think those are the big ones.
I think most of the rural seats, I don't expect there to be much excitement in any of them.
On the heavy focus by the parties on Prince Albert and Moose Jaw
Yes, and I think those are the places where it's really the test of the popularity and position of the government, as well as the desire for change.
I think that's why everybody perceives those cities as, to a greater or lesser degree, as up for grabs. For the Sask.Party, if they're going to lose seats in the big cities, they need to have some seats in some of the other cities. For the NDP, it's exactly the opposite.
It's about ‘we're not just a Regina and Saskatoon party, we're also a party that has representation in other parts of the province.’ Both of those cities are really important for both parties.
What to expect in the rural seats
I don't think any of the truly rural seats will change hands. The big question is, I guess, is there enough of a showing of the third parties, of parties like the Sask United and the Buffalo (Party), to encourage their membership to hang on and continue to try to build an alternative on the right to the Sask Party.
One of the biggest challenges in a small party is, without a seat in the legislature, you get sort of forgotten about in between elections, you don't get any media time, you don't get much, no reporter calls you for comment, or what have you. If you have at least one seat in the Leg, you have access to media and whatnot that you wouldn't get otherwise. And so this will be a real test, and I suspect, I'm not expecting them to actually come out of this with any seats.
All of the polling suggests that they're running well under 10 per cent
How will Sask United do
If Sask United has any chance, it's whether Nadine Wilson, as a sitting MLA, can hold her seat.
But that was a seat she won as a Sask Party person, and she's running against the Sask Party. So who knows whether this translates very well. There's a very mixed history of how voters treat people who cross parties, or cross the floor and change parties halfway through their term.
It often doesn't go well for them.
I would be, again, I would be surprised if Sask United comes out with a single seat. I'm not even convinced that Nadine Wilson can hold hers.
What’s at stake for Scott Moe and Carla Beck
Well, I think this is interesting. Everybody's expecting there to be more New Democrats, fewer Sask Party members. The question is how big each of those numbers actually wind up being.
The more New Democrats that get elected, I think the more likely it is that questions start getting raised inside the Sask Party about Scott Moe's leadership, and that maybe there's a time for a change there. I think with Beck, there's much less at stake in leadership terms. The NDP has changed leaders rather frequently lately.
This is, I think, the fourth leader of the NDP since the Sask Party came into power. Beck will have gone from a caucus that began as 12, they won a couple of by-elections, they got to 14. If she's in the low to mid-20s in terms of seats, then her leadership is perfectly safe.
It would have to be some complete reversal of what everybody is expecting and what all the polls have said. If they wound up only winning a few more seats, then maybe there are questions asked. I think the person who's got the most at stake leadership-wise is the Premier at this time.
Final comments
Well, it's been one of the more sort of interesting elections since I moved here 25 years ago. It is certainly one in which, you know, even though in some respects the outcome is not going to be a big surprise I don't think, there's still some suspense and some big questions to be answered on election night. And we haven't had an election like that for a while, and we haven't been surprised on election night by very much for a while. So it'll be fun to see what surprises the voters throw our way as a province.
