On Oct. 3, Manitobans went to the polls and voted out Heather Stefanson and the Progressive Conservatives, voting in the New Democrats and marking the first change in government since the pandemic started. One of the most prominent aspects of this election was the stark difference in the two parties’ campaign styles. While the NDP had a relatively disciplined and on-message campaign on healthcare, the PCs bet and lost on a riskier approach. They leaned hard into a culture wars-inspired campaign about crime, searching the landfill, and “parental rights.”

Before analyzing the PC’s campaign and why it failed, it is important to point out that they still got 42.1% of the vote. Even though they lost, there is a large share of Manitobans who bought into their strategy. But the key is not looking at just how many people voted blue, but where.

By-and-large, the PCs’ culture war campaign appealed primarily to rural voters—voters who were against searching the landfill and less likely to support a progressive party. Turnout for the PCs was high in this group of Manitobans. The election, however, was not going to be decided in Lac du Bonnet or Steinbach. It was going to be decided by moderate NDP-PC swing voters living in south Winnipeg. This came back to haunt the PCs.

In 2019, Brian Pallister won over these swing voters by focusing on “bread and butter issues”—lowering taxes and lowering the cost of living for Manitobans. The NDP capitalized on this same strategy, promising to fix healthcare and lower taxes. The PCs on the other hand? They plastered the city with ads of Obby Khan’s face talking about parental rights, made not searching a landfill for murdered Indigenous women a key platform point, and used a disgraced ex-Bear Clan board member to attack Kinew on crime and his past. Yikes. Instead of firing up the voters who gave them a majority, they turned them off and pushed them towards the NDP. 

The NDP almost completely swept Winnipeg on election night. It took dropping 13 seats, eight ministers losing their jobs, and Stefanson almost losing her own seat to learn the vital truth of our province: moderate voters decide our elections, and culture wars do not get them fired up to vote. Unfortunately for the PCs and their culture war campaigns, it turns out that when Manitobans voted like no one is watching, they voted orange.