Liberal surge helped fuel NDP collapse in previous Manitoba strongholds: pollster

CTV’s Jeff Keele looks closer at the election results in Manitoba, and what the political landscape looks like now.

As Canadians wake up to a newly formed Liberal government, Manitoba pundits say the red surge seems to have fueled an NDP collapse in Manitoba ridings previously considered orange strongholds.

With Mark Carney emerging at the helm of a minority government, the Liberals also made gains in Manitoba. The party went from four to six seats, while the Conservatives broke even with seven. NDP lost all but one - only hanging on in Winnipeg Centre with MP Leah Gazan re-elected under a radically slimmer margin than in 2021.

Probe Research’s Curtis Brown reckons the Liberal surge likely leached NDP voters, flipping Manitoba seats once considered orange strongholds over to the Tories.

Elmwood-Transcona is a prime example, he said.

“The Conservatives, even though they lost that seat in the byelection, were able to take the seat.”

Monday’s vote was a seeming rematch from the September byelection in that riding, when the NDP’s Leila Dance won over Conservative Colin Reynolds by under 1,200 votes.

This time around, Reynolds took the riding. The latest results Tuesday morning have him in front of Dance by about 3,300 votes.

Ian MacIntyre, the Liberal challenger, increased his voter share from just under 5 per cent in September to 22 per cent as of Tuesday morning.

Manitoba’s largest geographical riding also turned red, ousting longtime NDP MP Niki Ashton in favour of Liberal Rebecca Chartrand.

“I wouldn’t say it was a surprise but that was also a pretty emphatic victory for the Liberals in what has been a longtime NDP seat in Manitoba,” Brown said.

Liberals flip Winnipeg seat in election rematch

Meanwhile, Winnipeg West switched from blue to red as incumbent Marty Morantz lost to Doug Eyolfson.

“The Liberals winning by as much as they did was a little bit of a surprise. I thought it was going to be a little bit tighter,” Brown said.

Morantz has represented the riding since 2019, and snagged re-election in 2021 with just 460 more votes than Eyolfson.

Morantz, who is a former city councillor, said he has no plans to run for office again, adding that he feels good about his career in politics.

This is Eyolfson’s second time winning the seat, which he held from 2015 to 2019.

He said his win was a “little surreal,” but that he’s very happy.

“Getting back here was six years of hard work,” he told CTV News Winnipeg on election night.

Manitoba voter turnout by the numbers

With advance voting records set in the lead-up to Monday’s election day, some wondered whether overall turnout numbers were on track to rise, as well.

Elections Canada estimated 7.3 million people cast a ballot during advance polls from April 18 to 21, while Manitoba recorded its best voter turnout since the late ’90s.

As of Tuesday morning, Elections Canada said 67 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot during this election campaign, though a few hundred polls have yet to be tallied, plus special ballots.

That’s good enough to best 2021 numbers but is well off the record set in the 1958 election, when nearly 80 per cent of Canadian voters turned up in a contest that gave Tory John Diefenbaker a majority government.

As of Tuesday morning, Manitoba had voter turnout pegged at 66.8 per cent with 99 per cent of polls reporting.

That’s a comfortable rise over the last two general elections, which recorded 61.6 and 63.6 per cent respectively.

- With files from CTV’s Rachel Lagacé, Danton Unger, and Jeff Keele