What do the 4 by-elections tell us? Generally, not much. The results are a mixed bag. The Conservatives, NDP and BQ can all point to positives (although not universally — while they improved in some places they went down in others), while there was no good news for the Greens and Liberals.

Pundits and media like to see by-elections as tests of party momentum, but this is largely fiction, since the deciding factor in how people vote is so much less about party (as is the case in general elections, when an average 80-85% of votes are party votes) and more about the local candidate, how many resources ($ and people) are put into it, and how effectively each party’s on-the-ground apparatus is mobilized. Moreover, the extremely low turnouts (from a low of 22% in Hochelaga to a “high” of 36% in Montmagny) are not a good indication of what happens when 60 to 70% of people turn out. We’ll have to wait to see how much money (and by association, people) each party put into each race, but I suspect we’ll see a wide range that roughly reflects the results. Below is a comparison of the % vote in the 2008 election (the first number) vs the 2009 by-election.

Montmagny—L’Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup
Conservative — 30.6 vs 42.7 (+12.1)
Bloc — 46.0 vs 37.7 (-8.3)
Liberal — 15.4 vs 13.2 (-2.2)
NDP — 5.4 vs 4.8 (-0.6)
Green — 2.2 vs 1.7 (-0.5)

Hochelaga
Bloc — 49.7 vs 51.2 (+1.5)
Conservative — 9.2 vs 10.1 (+0.9)
Liberal — 20.7 vs 14.3 (-6.4)
NDP — 14.4 vs 19.5 (+5.1)
Green — 4.3 vs 3.3 (-1.0)

Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley
Conservative — 8.8 vs 45.8 (+37.0)
NDP — 12.3 vs 25.7 (+13.4)
Liberal — 8.4 vs 21.3 (+12.9)
Green — n/a vs 3.3 (+3.3)
(note: independent Bill Casey won with 69.0 last time)

New Westminster—Coquitlam
NDP — 41.8 vs 49.6 (+7.8)
Conservative — 38.8 vs 35.8 (-3.0)
Liberal — 11.3 vs 10.3 (-1.0)
Green — 7.2 vs 4.3 (-2.9)

The Conservative did well in Montmagny, while the Bloc under-performed, but the other 3 parties were not far off their 2008 results. The NDP improved in Hochelaga, while the Liberals dropped. The comparison in Cumberland-Colchester is not especially meaningful given Casey’s overwhelming victory in 2008, but it tells us that Conservatives came home to roost while the Liberals and NDP improved by roughly the same amount. The NDP (who generally out-perform their general election results in by-elections) did well in New West, while the Conservatives and Greens under-performed. That the Liberals (who generally don’t do well in by-elections) under-performed their 2008 results in all 3 of the “normal” by-elections (excluding Cumberland) is not welcome news for Ignatieff, but probably the Hochelaga result is the only truly worrying one.