Love that cougar picture. About a week and a half ago, a cougar took a deer right in my neighbors backyard in buckhorn near the sawmill. She watched it take it down.
Umm, as was pointed out in Reddit, with the Valemount riding. If you carefully look at the individual polls, the only polls where the Conservatives lap the NDP , in such numbers that it shifts the riding; are Blackburn, Pineview and Valemount.
All other polls are even or near even. In fact if you count the left leaning NDP+Green , many polls in PG proper from this riding actually have the left-leaning narrowly overtake the Liberals.
So your title is wrong. I am surprised that you jumped on this data without more careful analysis.
The reality is is that it is nuanced.
And especially Because they have now split College Heights, which is likely the most progressive, in to two and we don't have the poll numbers for the Quesnel riding.
I think maybe you should have put more thought in to this
I'm not seeing what you're seeing, or I'm misunderstanding it. My first question was: is it possible for the everyone in Prince George to vote for one party, and for everyone in rural areas to vote for another, and the rural areas to override the PG vote. The answer is no — there are far more voters in Prince George than other areas. As for the actual returns, you are going to have to actually point out some numbers because you are clearly seeing something I'm not: in PG-Valemount, every return has more Conservative voters than any other party, except St. Mary's. So I'm not sure what your are referring to?
Diving into this more, I'm actually more confused.
You write: "In fact if you count the left leaning NDP+Green , many polls in PG proper from this riding actually have the left-leaning narrowly overtake the Liberals."
I'll assume by Liberals you mean Conservatives.
I'll go with the assumption that if it weren't for the Greens, every one of their voters would have voted NDP.
Let's go through the 'non-rural' returns.
College Heights Baptist:
Conservative: 232
NDP+Green: 273 (lead)
First Baptist:
Conservative: 225
NDP + Green: 236 (lead)
PG Secondary School:
Conservative: 122 (lead)
NDP+Green: 111
St. Mary's:
Conservative: 114
NDP + Green: 140 (lead)
Trinity United:
Conservative: 139
NDP + Green: 150 (lead)
Van Bien:
Conservative: 433 (lead)
NDP + Green: 354
Westwood:
Conservative: 305 (lead)
NDP + Green: 270
Of 7 returning stations, 3 have the Conservatives leading over the NDP and Green vote combined, while 4 go the other way. But the leads the Conservatives have are bigger. If you combine all 7 of these more urban stations, the overall numbers are
Conservative: 1570
NDP+Green: 1534
It's tighter, but that's still a Conservative victory in 'urban' Prince George-Valemount, assuming everyone who voted for a different party were to coalesce around a single choice.
It is very tight, the Conservatives still might win but not by much. Looking at the numbers in this way it shows there is a solid progressive vote in Prince George.
I think it is important to recognize this and to advertise this .
One so that if people do want to move here from more progressive places they are not scared by the constant barrages that everyone here is super right wing.
Two, it gives me hope, after there was such solid support for people who I know people know them for decades and they aren't great. If you dig into the numbers, especially in PG it's actually more nuanced.
Three, if progressive parties realize there is the progressive lean, they may actually spend more time and focus campaining in this area which could reap benefits. Since I am a progressive voter that matters. And we might see with a bit more push, and the right local candidate , suddenly you have that handful more votes on the progressive side
So thank you for doing that analysis, your numbers do support what I was saying, there is actually a solid progressive vote.
And for those who don't want to look at each poll area as I did and are not old timer PGers. Blackburn, Pineview and Valemount are all significantly rural
Seconding this - I lived in Pineview for a few years (which I admit is not much!!) and it seemed like a good number of folks commuted into the city each day, which to me leans that section more suburban, despite being outside the city limits. This is of course just my anecdotal experience, and I do believe that there are still people out there who don't work in the city, but I suspect they number fewer than city commuters.
same. I live in Tabor-Ferndale and it's a 12 minute commute to my office and a couple of minutes more for my husband. It should be called "rural suburban" for much of the rural area outside of the actual city limits. My road gets pretty busy during the morning and evening "rush hours" out here as people come and go to work in town.
My husband and I also voted in the advanced polls in the city, and the advanced polling sites are not included in the breakdown in the tables - we voted at the Elder Citizens Rec Centre. Even if those polls were included, you couldn't pick us out from any one else rural or non-rural from that data. I think the tables provide a wee bit of insight as to the voting for specific areas (e.g. Valemount) but not much else. Like, where are all the Willow River and Eastline and Dunster voters? Possibly included in some of the town polls, or mail in or went to McBride for the advanced poll, or just didn't vote at all.
It's not a statistical sample, is what I'm suggesting. :)
I also voted in advance and fully agree that because the numbers aren't anywhere near comprehensive or specific, they don't really represent much. This popped out at me immediately, though I am a bit of a numbers/stats enthusiast (wouldn't go so far as to claim the nerd title) and likely wouldn't have thought of it if I'd not spent my professional career thus far in academic libraries (and gotten repeatedly upset about the lack of long form census in 2011)
Love that cougar picture. About a week and a half ago, a cougar took a deer right in my neighbors backyard in buckhorn near the sawmill. She watched it take it down.
0 votes at the Civic Center?
Umm, as was pointed out in Reddit, with the Valemount riding. If you carefully look at the individual polls, the only polls where the Conservatives lap the NDP , in such numbers that it shifts the riding; are Blackburn, Pineview and Valemount.
All other polls are even or near even. In fact if you count the left leaning NDP+Green , many polls in PG proper from this riding actually have the left-leaning narrowly overtake the Liberals.
So your title is wrong. I am surprised that you jumped on this data without more careful analysis.
The reality is is that it is nuanced.
And especially Because they have now split College Heights, which is likely the most progressive, in to two and we don't have the poll numbers for the Quesnel riding.
I think maybe you should have put more thought in to this
I'm not seeing what you're seeing, or I'm misunderstanding it. My first question was: is it possible for the everyone in Prince George to vote for one party, and for everyone in rural areas to vote for another, and the rural areas to override the PG vote. The answer is no — there are far more voters in Prince George than other areas. As for the actual returns, you are going to have to actually point out some numbers because you are clearly seeing something I'm not: in PG-Valemount, every return has more Conservative voters than any other party, except St. Mary's. So I'm not sure what your are referring to?
Diving into this more, I'm actually more confused.
You write: "In fact if you count the left leaning NDP+Green , many polls in PG proper from this riding actually have the left-leaning narrowly overtake the Liberals."
I'll assume by Liberals you mean Conservatives.
I'll go with the assumption that if it weren't for the Greens, every one of their voters would have voted NDP.
Let's go through the 'non-rural' returns.
College Heights Baptist:
Conservative: 232
NDP+Green: 273 (lead)
First Baptist:
Conservative: 225
NDP + Green: 236 (lead)
PG Secondary School:
Conservative: 122 (lead)
NDP+Green: 111
St. Mary's:
Conservative: 114
NDP + Green: 140 (lead)
Trinity United:
Conservative: 139
NDP + Green: 150 (lead)
Van Bien:
Conservative: 433 (lead)
NDP + Green: 354
Westwood:
Conservative: 305 (lead)
NDP + Green: 270
Of 7 returning stations, 3 have the Conservatives leading over the NDP and Green vote combined, while 4 go the other way. But the leads the Conservatives have are bigger. If you combine all 7 of these more urban stations, the overall numbers are
Conservative: 1570
NDP+Green: 1534
It's tighter, but that's still a Conservative victory in 'urban' Prince George-Valemount, assuming everyone who voted for a different party were to coalesce around a single choice.
It is very tight, the Conservatives still might win but not by much. Looking at the numbers in this way it shows there is a solid progressive vote in Prince George.
I think it is important to recognize this and to advertise this .
One so that if people do want to move here from more progressive places they are not scared by the constant barrages that everyone here is super right wing.
Two, it gives me hope, after there was such solid support for people who I know people know them for decades and they aren't great. If you dig into the numbers, especially in PG it's actually more nuanced.
Three, if progressive parties realize there is the progressive lean, they may actually spend more time and focus campaining in this area which could reap benefits. Since I am a progressive voter that matters. And we might see with a bit more push, and the right local candidate , suddenly you have that handful more votes on the progressive side
So thank you for doing that analysis, your numbers do support what I was saying, there is actually a solid progressive vote.
And for those who don't want to look at each poll area as I did and are not old timer PGers. Blackburn, Pineview and Valemount are all significantly rural
What does significantly rural mean?
Seconding this - I lived in Pineview for a few years (which I admit is not much!!) and it seemed like a good number of folks commuted into the city each day, which to me leans that section more suburban, despite being outside the city limits. This is of course just my anecdotal experience, and I do believe that there are still people out there who don't work in the city, but I suspect they number fewer than city commuters.
same. I live in Tabor-Ferndale and it's a 12 minute commute to my office and a couple of minutes more for my husband. It should be called "rural suburban" for much of the rural area outside of the actual city limits. My road gets pretty busy during the morning and evening "rush hours" out here as people come and go to work in town.
My husband and I also voted in the advanced polls in the city, and the advanced polling sites are not included in the breakdown in the tables - we voted at the Elder Citizens Rec Centre. Even if those polls were included, you couldn't pick us out from any one else rural or non-rural from that data. I think the tables provide a wee bit of insight as to the voting for specific areas (e.g. Valemount) but not much else. Like, where are all the Willow River and Eastline and Dunster voters? Possibly included in some of the town polls, or mail in or went to McBride for the advanced poll, or just didn't vote at all.
It's not a statistical sample, is what I'm suggesting. :)
I also voted in advance and fully agree that because the numbers aren't anywhere near comprehensive or specific, they don't really represent much. This popped out at me immediately, though I am a bit of a numbers/stats enthusiast (wouldn't go so far as to claim the nerd title) and likely wouldn't have thought of it if I'd not spent my professional career thus far in academic libraries (and gotten repeatedly upset about the lack of long form census in 2011)