The Concordia By-election - Liberals don't quit and gain votes, NDP and Tories lose votes

In the byelection in Concordia last week, Judi Heppner and the Manitoba Liberals continued campaigning hard right to the end. Unlike the Tories who gave up early in the day, Liberals kept going and worked hard. It paid off. Judi Heppner, already described twice on my blog, was an outstanding candidate and it showed in the quality of everything she did. She and her husband Rob and her three children contributed a lot.

Despite an overall record low turnout, the Liberal vote increased by 82% from 336 votes in 2007 up to 613 votes in the byelection. In contrast, the NDP vote decreased by almost half from 3862 votes in 2007 down to 2065 votes in the byelection. The Tory vote also collapsed decreasing by more than 40% from 1209 votes in 2007 to 694 in the byelection.

A big thanks to the many volunteers who put in long hours to make this happen. I know how hard people worked because I was out there with the team all the way. A particular thank you goes to Bill de Jong and his wife Sheila who served as Campaign Manager and Official Agent for the campaign. Thank you Bill and Sheila for all you did to pull the team together and keep people working hard and effectively all through the campaign. Also, a major thank you to Daniel Lemire, President of the Concordia Liberal Constituency Association for your dedicated efforts. Thank yous for big efforts also go to Ian Band, Sachit Mehra, Regan Wolform, Yvonne Morris, Rob Dyck, Rob Brown, Wayne Hutton, Gemma Eko-Davis, Ron Wally, Peter Koroma, Paul Hesse, Leah Ross and my wife Naomi Gerrard who headed up the Regional Teams and to Kevin Lamoureux for his help and participation. Thanks also to Walt Nilsson, Isaiah Oyeleru, Greg Liverpool, Cheryl Conley-Strange, Scott Sarna and Val Thompson, Patricia Ek0-Davis, Daniel Deng and the many, many others who helped in one way or another during the campaign, and in particular to our hard working Executive Director Dennis Trochim.