Incumbent Malcolm Allen was re-elected on May 2nd in the Welland riding with 42.2% of the popular vote in the riding (a 9.3% increase over the 2008 election). I helped with Allen’s campaign for a few days before election day and there was a large amount of support for Allen in the community while going door-to-door. In the polls that I covered, there were only a handful of Liberal Party signs. At the time I thought it was out of the ordinary, but seeing the collapse of the Liberal Party on election day, it seems to be national trend and not out of the ordinary.
In St. Catharines, Conservative incumbent Rick Dykstra was re-elected. Despite his re-election, the NDP’s performance is noteworthy. For the first time since before the 1960s, the NDP placed second in popular vote in St. Catharines (obtaining 23.8%). Similar to St. Catharines, Conservative incumbent Dean Allison was re-elected in the Niagara West riding, but once again the NDP placed second in popular vote with 21.6% (a 6.8% increase over the 2008 election). Similarly, the Niagara Falls riding also saw Conservative MP Rob Nicholson re-elected while the NDP candidate Heather Kelley finished second with 23.5% of the vote (a 5.7% increase over 2008).
In sum, the Niagara area was relatively uneventful since all incumbents were re-election without any changes. Of note was the surge in NDP support in Niagara since they finished second in all ridings except in Welland where they were elected. The surge in NDP support followed the national trend for the election where they finished as the official opposition.
