Thoughts on why I placed where I did in this year's Mayoral election....

 

 

Why I lost the Mayoral Election….

Arjun Singh, Fall 2022

Draft

Oct 24th 2022

Going into this election, I felt I had a lot of foundational elements for earning the most support to become the Mayor:

• topped the polls in 2018 as councillor
• Served as President of UBCM and serving as FCM director and committee chair
• Most experienced city councillor
• Recognized as a leader in climate action

There were a few issues that were potentially challenging for my candidacy:

• Council relations this term
• Concerns about community safety and the TNRD spending scandal
• My climate action advocacy alienated some

Given the winner of the Mayor election, it really does seem that this election was a difficult one for incumbent councillors. I completely underestimated the community concerns about community safety and disorder and how Reid Hamer-Jackson was able to tap into these concerns. 

My message was much more about the community coming together, the importance of partnerships with other orders of government, and defence of our social service agencies. 

There was also a “rumour mill” about a perceived conflict of interest I had making money off renting to social agencies and their clients. 

I also did made two strategic decisions that might have depressed my vote:

• No more campaign signs made
• Less traditional advertising

I spent quite heavily on facebook advertising and invested a lot of time and resources into doorknocking and note dropping into people’s mailboxes.

I also don’t know if I raised enough money to compete with the other candidates. This will become more clear once the financial disclosures are released. My message design and graphic element was not always as polished as the other campaigns.

I have gained weight the past year or so and have a facial tic that causes my face to squint these days. Perhaps I looked less well than my competitors. 

 

Dec 15th 2022

In the two months since the election, one thing I have heard a lot was that the incumbent council members running for Mayor “split the vote”. I am not a big believer that anyone owns votes. The vote fundamentally belongs to the individual voter. The fact remains the amount of votes the incumbent council members received for Mayor total up to more than the candidates from outside council.

Comments

[GiselaR]

I agree "no one owns votes". But that's irrelevant to the point about vote-splitting. This was a case of first-past-the-post vote-splitting in its purest form. One "non-traditional" candidate received more individual votes than the 3 "status quo" candidates, who combined received far more votes. It's not an illegitimate result, that's for sure, because that's the way the system was designed to work. RHJ won fair and square.

But the fact remains that if voters had been able to express their preferences more fully on their ballot (e.g. had the opportunity to rank 2nd and 3rd choices as well), it's quite likely that one of the three "status quo" candidates would have become our new mayor.

This problem explains why parties and practically every other institution that take seriously the election of a President or other "single-winner" position have evolved to using a ranked ballot: by taking vote-splitting out of the equation, it ensures that more people are pleased with the final result.

I understand why a person who lost under the first-past-the-post system might choose to focus on other factors rather than blame the system—because who wants to be accused of whining or expressing sour grapes? But that doesn't make the system any less crappy.

[Michele Hadley]

Hi friend. I don't think any of your points mattered. I think It all came down to a strong desire to get "tough on crime", and "drain the swamp" , so to speak. In general, there has been a strong far right political wind affecting Canada. It has been building since the eras of Trump and the Freedom
Convoy fiascos. It has been a case of voter apathy by the majority, and a distaste for governments and the rule of law by the minority. As a result, someone like RHJ would appeal to this minority of the population who wanted radical change and someone to change the status quo of how a city should be run. There was an air of "vigilante-ism" is their views on crime, along with a deep seated anger towards the agencies that they felt were contributing to the lawlessness in the city.
For many, this was the first time they had any interest in either voting, or getting involved with city politics in general. They've been seeing how minorities can, with overt displays of opposition to governments, and loud social media presence, can influence vast swings in ideology and affect change. They felt that someone like RHJ would really be the only one to listen to them, act on their behalf, and push back against all the norms, morals, rules and policies governing city council today. In fact, because he was so green in terms of politics, even HE thought he had far more power than he actually had. And now we are living the result. Sigh..... My point, NOTHING you did or didn't do, who have changed this.
The fact that you were so experienced in council was the very
reason that they felt you had to go. Make sense? This pendulum will swing back. People are already seeing why it was so important to get out and vote. Next time I doubt they will be so apathetic towards the idea. Thanks for letting me share my ideas with you. Keep on keeping on my friend!

[Gordie Logan]

My friend, it’s Kamloops loss. Although I chose not to run, I was a keen observer. There were a couple of forces at play this year:

- Distortion of the facts. Candidates seized on the negative, and without any perspective spun decisions to suit them.

- Residents simply wanted a change. Feedback I had was that there was a perception that residents weren’t heard during the pandemic, even tho it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Mayor Martin was a target of all this, despite moving Colwood forward in such a positive way. Perceptions decided the election. IMHO.