South Winnipeg holds key election battles: Experts
Posted September 27, 2023 6:27 pm.
Last Updated September 27, 2023 10:39 pm.
Manitoba’s provincial election is bringing forth several key battles in a number of ridings in Winnipeg and across the province, and political analysts say most of them are going to come right down to the wire.
Manitoba has 57 electoral divisions. More than half, 32, are in and around Winnipeg. Political analyst and professor Christopher Adams says he’s specifically keeping a close eye on Southdale, Fort Richmond, and Waverly, which are PC-held ridings.
“Winnipeg has some real battleground areas, specifically in South Winnipeg,” said Adams.
He’s also closely watching Fort Whyte, in which PC candidate Obby Khan squeezed out a narrow victory over Liberal candidate Willard Reaves in the 2022 byelection.
“We’ll be watching South Winnipeg in this election, because those constituencies are bell-weathers for how things will go.”
Assiniboia, Kirkfield Park, McPhillips and riel are also of interest to him – ridings, once again, in which the PC candidates are the incumbents ahead of election night. Out of the 57 seats, PCs held 35 leading into the election, while the NDP had 18 and the Liberals 3. Adams says many of the PC seats could go from blue to either orange or red.
“The way by which these are looked at is how did they go over the past number of elections. Many of these constituencies were NDP beforehand, many went over to the PCs. We are watching these constituencies because we are looking to see if the NDP will take them back on Oct. 3.”
Latest polling shows the NDP have a 22-percentage point lead over the PCs in Winnipeg, however, outside Winnipeg, the PCs hold a 15 per cent lead over the NDP.
Brandon University Political Professor Kelly Saunders says Winnipeg holds majority of the marbles for winning the election, but she says there are many key races outside of Winnipeg, including Brandon East, Dauphin, Selkirk, and the Interlake, which are all PC-held.
“There seems to be, ‘it’s time for a change’ kind of feeling about this, which is certainly what we saw in 2016,” said Saunders.
Saunders says the election could go either way at this point.
“It’s kind of hard to get a read on this one, because I am hearing from both sides that things are still too close to call in a lot of those Winnipeg ridings,” said Saunders.
But Adams says the PCs, at this point, are trying to hold on to what they have.
South “It might be too little, too late. I think the NDP have had a more successful campaign, a more high-profile for Wab Kinew, but at the same time, Heather Stefanson is the incumbent Premier and there are advantages to incumbency.”
