Live Commentary
9:48am Wednesday (Two paragraph entry) With all 204 booths reporting in NVC, results are 58.6% Liberals (down 1.3% since 2025), 29.2% Tories (down 4.5%), 8.7% Greens (up 7.0%) and 3.1% NDP (down 1.1%). The Liberal winning margin of 29.4 points far exceeded the poll that gave them a 16.5-point margin.
The Liberals have governed in Canada since winning the October 2015 election. In late 2024, they had looked certain to lose the 2025 election in a landslide. The Trump factor helped the Liberals recover to win the 2025 election, and he is continuing to hurt the Canadian Tories, who suffered moderate to huge swings against them in all three by-elections.
4:32pm With all 200 polls reporting in BEY, results are 55.7% Liberals (down 12.1% since 2025), 25.8% NDP (up 18.9%) and 15.5% Tories (down 8.0%). There was a big swing to the NDP at the expense of both the Liberals and Tories. The one poll in this seat overstated the Tories and understated the NDP.
2:51pm With all 212 polls reporting in CLF, results are 51.3% Liberals (up 20.2% since the 2025 election), 32.9% Bloc (up 1.7%) and 12.5% Tories (down 21.6%). This huge win for the Liberals was far bigger than in the two August polls that gave them 3-5 point leads over the Bloc (actual 18.4 points).
1:59pm The CBC has called NVC for the Liberals, as they lead the Tories by 57.9-27.6 with 9.7% for the Greens after 105 of 204 polls. The Liberals will win all three by-elections today (two holds and one gain) and once again have a majority of seats with 173 of the 343.
1:11pm After 10 of 204 polls in from NVC, the Liberals lead the Tories by 55.1-28.9 with 11.7% for the Greens. This should be called for the Liberals soon.
12:54pm In NVC, the Liberals lead the Tories by 51.9-32.1 with 11.% for the Greens and 4.5% NDP after 5 of 204 polls in.
12:51pm The CBC has called Liberal wins in CLF and BEY. In CLF, the Liberals lead the Bloc by 49.1-34.1 with 12.9% Tories after 125 of 212 polls. In BEY, the Liberals are leading the NDP by 55.0-25.6 with 16.0% Tories after 115 of 200 polls.
12:19pm The Liberals are looking very likely to gain CLF from the Tories. With 30 of 212 in, they lead the Bloc by 48.7-32.5 with 12.7% for the Tories. In BEY, the Liberals lead the NDP by 50.0-27.2 with 18.1% for the Tories.
12:07pm After 10 of 212 booths from CLF, the Liberals lead the Bloc by 48.3-32.4 with 15.6% for the Tories. In BEY, after 5 of 200, the Liberals lead the NDP by 52.6-26.7 with 11.2% Tories.
12:01pm I’ll be using abbreviations: CLF for Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, BEY for Beaches-East York and NVC for North Vancouver-Capilano. Canada doesn’t have booth-matched results, so we’ll need to wait for a large amount of polling stations before narrow wins can be called. The CBC has results for CLF and BEY on separate pages.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
Polls close at 11:30am AEST today for federal Canadian by-elections in Beaches-East York and Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, and at 12 noon for the North Vancouver-Capilano by-election. Canada uses first-past-the-post for national and provincial elections.
At the April 2025 Canadian election, the centre-left Liberals defeated the Conservatives in North Vancouver-Capilano by 59.8-33.7 with 4.2% for the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP). The Liberals defeated the Conservatives in Beaches-East York by 67.8-23.5 with 6.9% for the NDP. August Poliwave polls gave the Liberals a 16.5-point lead over the Conservatives in North Vancouver-Capilano and a 34-point lead in Beaches-East York.
The most interesting by=election is likely to be in the Quebec seat of Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, which the Conservatives won in 2025 with 34.1%. The separatist Quebec Bloc and the Liberals were nearly tied (31.2% Bloc, 31.1% Liberals). Two August polls gave the Liberals 3-5 point leads over the Bloc with the Conservatives a distant third.
The Liberals currently hold 170 of the 343 House of Commons seats including eight vacancies, so they need to win at least two of today’s by-elections to reach the 172 needed for a majority. Six further by-elections are expected in the near future, with two due to resignations of Liberal MPs. The Liberals have recently surged to lead the Conservatives by double-digit margins in Canadian federal polls.
Also of interest in Canada, a referendum in the right-wing province of Alberta will occur on October 19 proposing that Alberta secede from Canada. Even if the referendum passes, it would only direct Alberta to hold a binding referendum at a later date. Three mid to late August polls have “Remain in Canada” leading by 28 to 52 points.
US updates
At the November 3 US midterm elections, all 435 federal House of Representatives seats and 35 of the 100 senators will be up for election. In 2024 elections, Republicans won the House by 220-215 over Democrats and the Senate by 53-47.
In Nate Silver’s midterm election forecast, Democrats currently have a 56% chance to gain control of the Senate and an 85% chance to gain the House (respectively 57% and 86% in my August 12 US article for The Conversation). Democrats lead Republicans by 50.1-42.4 (7.7 points) in the national generic ballot, down from 8.1 points previously. Donald Trump’s net approval is –19.4 (57.7% disapprove, 38.3% approve), up from -20.4.
Democrats are leading in Senate contests by three points or less in Ohio, Texas and Alaska, all states that Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024. This explains why they are narrow favourites to win the Senate.
Alaska uses a jungle primary with the top four candidates qualifying for the general election using preferential voting. At the August 18 Senate primary, Democrat Mary Peltola won 49.5%, Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan 41.4% and another Dan Sullivan 2.5%; he tried to benefit from name confusion. If these results were replicated in November, Peltola would win.
German state election could be first AfD majority
Next Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt German state election will be held using statewide proportional representation with a 5% threshold. Polls have the populist right AfD surging into the low 40s, far ahead of the conservative governing CDU who are in the low 20s. The Left party is in the low double digits and the centre-left SPD in the high single digits.
Three other parties are at or just below the 5% threshold. If only the AfD, CDU, Left and SPD clear the threshold, the AfD would have a reasonable chance to win its first ever majority in a state election.
Upcoming New Zealand election
The New Zealand election will be held on November 7 using the Mixed Member Proportional system where parties need to win at least 5% of the party vote or a single-member electorate to qualify for a proportional share of the 120 seats.
The current right-wing governing coalition of National, ACT and NZ First is likely to defeat the left-wing coalition of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. But the right may be denied a majority owing to the centrist Opportunity having more than 5% in the latest polls. I wrote about this election for the NZ edition of The Conversation last Tuesday.
Tories will absolutely get owned today. Go Mark Carney! This will be a victory for Canada. They will send a loud and clear message to the questionable behaviour by the US President lately.
Carney should call a snap election, 338Canada currently has the Liberals winning well over 220 seats. The biggest win since 1984 for any party if replicated.
Also there is an election in Quebec next month. It is likely that the separatist PQ will win a plurality of seats thus forming minority government. But could win a majority if the governing CAQ do better than the polls, splitting the anti-PQ vote with the Quebec Liberals.
An interesting perspective on the October 5th Quebec election here…
https://www.policymagazine.ca/the-quebec-election-so-far-frechette-is-winning-the-triangulation-game/
Libs in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord now on 49.1% from 130 0f 212 polls reports.
Liberals sweep 3 federal byelections in Ontario, Quebec and B.C., CBC News projects
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/livestory/live-updates-byelection-chicoutimi-le-fjord-vancouver-capilano-beaches-east-york-9.7327074
Click on the post to read the PM’s statement.
https://bsky.app/profile/mark-carney.bsky.social/post/3mugkfcjfj22s
Mark Carney @mark-carney.bsky.social
My statement on the by-elections in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Beaches—East York, and North Vancouver—Capilano.
Thanks for the updates Adrian. I am torn regarding Saxony-Anhalt – the thought of AfD leading any German state government makes me feel ill, but maybe if they finally have the levers of power it will show that the politics of grievance don’t get you very far when you actually win office. A lesson for Australia perhaps also?
Regarding Canada – Mark Carney is far too polite to do it, but I would love it if he called his American counterpart the ‘President of South Canada’.
I remembered an example from France when the National Front (Marine Le Pen’s father’s party and forerunner to her National Rally party) won the Mayoralty of Vitrolles, a small city near Marseilles in 1997.
Bruno Mégret (the National Front’s number two) was originally meant to run for mayor but was ineligible due to campaign overspending. His wife, Catherine Mégret, ran in his place as a proxy and won.
To immediately deliver on the party’s core ideological promise of “national preference” she passed a decree which offered a 5,000-franc cash allowance (around $833 USD) for every baby born in the town—but strictly on the condition that at least one parent was a French or European Union citizen. Immigrant families were explicitly excluded.
This violated the French Constitution’s guarantee of equality regardless of origin or race. The central government and anti-racism groups sued the municipality.The courts struck down the policy, and Catherine Mégret was criminally prosecuted, receiving a suspended prison sentence, a heavy fine, and a multi-year ban from holding public office for inciting racial discrimination.
This also led to a split in their party.
Given AfD’s similar ideology I wonder what would happen if they win.
There are reports that many businesses would leave Saxony-Anhalt out of any expansion plans, and this contagion could also spread to the other states of the old ‘East Germany’. Businesses hate uncertainty, and the AfD winning would certainly create that, and also create uncertainty about those other states which could well follow suit at their own statr elections and elect AfD governments. And I can’t imagine too many skilled immigrant workers (or any Germans of ‘Ausland’ (foreign) descent wanting to relocate to an AfD-run state.
We will soon find out. AfD won a plurality in the 2024 Thuringia state election with 33% of the vote but the other parties kept them out of government. I fear Saxony-Anhalt may finally see AfD ruling a state.
And in a coincidence 2026 is the centenary of the founding of the Hitler Youth.
History repeating itself? Farce or tragedy? See it on big German screen.
“maybe if they finally have the levers of power it will show that the politics of grievance don’t get you very far when you actually win office”
History suggests no, it will only make their support for the far-right worse, and more extreme until it self-destructs catastrophically or from an outside power that has been forced into defending itself.
“and another Dan Sullivan 2.5%; he tried to benefit from name confusion.”
The GOP tried and failed to have him removed from the Ballot.
The states top election official – at the GOPs behest – also tried to do the same.
Both were rebuffed by the courts and in the latter case with some rather sharp judicial comments on her clearly incorrect interpretation of the law as well as long standing office procedures and policies.
Somewhat ironic as it’s been a Republican tactic elsewhere to put up candidates with the same name as the Democratic candidate to try and confuse voters.
It’s an election. He can stand. He was eligible to stand. It’s not for others to judge his motives.
If voters thought they were voting for the other one then that’s down to them.
The incumbent Dan Sullivan was even marked as the incumbent on the ballot paper.
Please call a Snap-Election Mark Carney! The tories would absolutely be demolished and reduced to 40 seats if one is held today. Only holding seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan and a few in BC and Manitoba. Ontario would almost be a clean sweep for the Liberals.
A 20% swing to a governing party is no accident. It is a strong endorsement of Mark Carney’s Liberals and a utter rejection of the right-wing politics of Pierre and the Conservatives that have moved a long way from the red-tory pragmatism that have successfully governed many provinces in Canada for many years.
Conservatism is dead in Canada.