The Sutcliffe Surprise: Is the result of Ottawa’s mayor’s race indicative of a broader trend in the Canadian electorate?

In the current economic climate, the story of incoming Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s path to victory in an unsettled electorate likely has implications for politics at all levels of government.

Last night, veteran Ottawa journalist Mark Sutcliffe won what many considered to be a surprise, decisive victory over former Ottawa city councilor, Catherine McKenney.

While a relatively close race was expected, McKenney was considered the front runner.  Heading into election day, polling had McKenney ahead of Sutcliffe by several points. This had been the case through much of the summer. However, last night Sutcliffe won with over 51% of the vote, and a 13% lead over McKenney. 

The question many people - including columnist Matt Gurney - are asking today is what the heck happened here?

While I’m sure a fulsome analysis of what went down will happen in coming weeks - whether polls were weighted properly, how voter turnout in different parts of the city impacted the race - I have some gut feelings about this. And, I think this result has some commonalities with other recent elections in Canada and is another marker of a building political trend.

But first, for those not immersed in Ottawa municipal politics, some context about the race.

Catherine McKenney went into their bid for mayor having a reputation for being a charismatic city councilor. McKenney was a frequent, vocal critic of the City of Ottawa’s LRT debacle. They also have spent a considerable amount of effort raising concerns about the City of Ottawa’s mishandling of the trucker convoy.

But instead of focusing their campaign squarely on those points - value for money spending on major public infrastructure and the capacity for Ottawa police to protect the public - McKenney went bigger and swung for the fences. In public communications and highly visible campaign events, they made bold promises about ending homelessness by 2023, spending $250M on bike lane infrastructure, and a fare freeze on public transit. On social media, their campaign used a bold, unapologetically progressive tone. 

Sutcliffe’s campaign was decidedly a more low key affair. Interestingly, Sutcliffe’s campaign platform had a large degree of overlap with McKenney’s albeit with minor contrasts; a cap on property tax increases of 2.5% as opposed to 3% being one example. But Sutcliffe’s overall communications tone focused less on highlighting new initiatives and more on being a voice that could bring stability to a city hall that has been plagued with drama and dysfunction. And as further proof that this wasn’t an ideological battle royale between the two of them, each of their election night speeches were classy and respectful of one another, and left room for future collaboration.

That said, contributing to the difference in tone each campaign used was who was endorsing and running the campaigns of each of the two front runners. Several prominent farther-left leaning Liberal party MPs and senior activists (eg. former Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna) got behind McKenney and more centrist Liberals and progressive conservative activists got behind Sutcliffe (eg. the McGuinty family, Michelle Coates-Mather). McKenney tapped a senior Liberal activist with a known track record for pushing farther left leaning policy to run their campaign, while Sutcliffe picked a former Calgary-area Liberal candidate has experience trying to sell a Liberal message to a traditionally conservative voter base. In short, while they had some overlap in policy, McKenney surrounded themselves with people known for a more passionately activist brand of farther left leaning politics, while Sutcliffe opted for lower-key centrists.

And this is where I believe the root causes of the Sutcliffe Surprise™ lie; a misread of the general mood of the broader electorate on the part of McKenney’s team while Sutcliffe’s team read it right.

Full disclosure, I’m not a city of Ottawa voter and nor do I live in the city full time. But I’m here during sitting weeks of the House of Commons and occasionally wind up staying over the weekend when meetings go late on Friday and start early on Monday mornings. I also know a thing or two about the arc of campaigns.

Even into September, McKenney seemed to have a momentum advantage. Lawn signs for them abounded, and they were making local news several times a week for campaign commitments. However, in October I noticed a change. 

I have several close, non-political friends who live deep within various Ottawa area suburbs, and on evenings or weekends when I have downtime I often go and visit them. During these occasions in October I noticed more and more of Sutcliffe’s signs going up on private property, and less of McKenney’s. While lawn signs aren’t necessarily a reliable gauge of public sentiment, they have some measure of relevance. Also, my Ottawa area non-political friends have also started to talk about wanting a mayor who would “keep things stable” and “fix the problems first”. Concerns about the type of mayor that would do well under Ontario’s strong mayor legislation were also raised. While not naming McKenney or Sutcliffe directly, it was interesting to hear what type of campaign tone would resonate to get their votes.

And this is where I think Sutcliffe won over McKenney. I think in the end, Suttcliffe’s team, which had people on both the centre-left and centre-right of the political spectrum, were more accurately able to read the room of what voters were prioritizing. By contrast, McKenney was taking advice from a more homogenous group of advisors, and seeing evidence of a resonant campaign narrative on Twitter - a platform not known for its nuance or accuracy in overlaying tone with the general public. Particularly on social media, McKenney’s team was using well known left-branded activists like McKenna as spokespersons, while Sutcliffe lower key overall.

In 2015, having gone through ten years of a Conservative government and at a time of relative prosperity and a balanced federal budget, federal voters were in place to accept change and take a risk on a highly aspirational message. That year, the federal Conservatives largely ran a campaign that reiterated previous accomplishments and proposed incremental change. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals did the opposite and won a majority government.

Flash forward to October 2022. Canada is in a post-pandemic, post-years-of-massive deficit spending, inflationary crisis that is overlaid upon massive geopolitical instability and several years of significant progressive social policy. I believe the voting public is less in a mood for activist-themed big changes, and more desiring of political movements that represent safety and stability. I think this has been somewhat evidenced by the tone of successful candidates in the recent Ontario and Quebec provincial elections, and the Vancouver mayoral race.

In my experience, these sentiments might not always neatly show up on polls. For the most part, Canadians are socialized to value big, bold, transformative change. The McKenney / Sutcliffe campaign wasn’t necessarily a battle royale over ideology or the suitability of candidates, but there was definitely a contrast in the tone each campaign used to communicate their platforms. This could be a reason why some voters responded to a poll one way but voted another.

So, in that I think a key takeaway from the Sutcliffe Surprise and other recent elections in Canada will be that the voters might be growing weary of activist toned platforms and are instead looking for candidates who will give them a breather and assurances of stability.

Now, it’s important to point out that political movements on both the left and the right can equally fall into the ditch on this one; policy and tone that goes too far for an unsettled electorate can be generated from either side of the spectrum. I think this is a phenomenon that anyone in politics needs to be aware of right now.

And on that note, I’m going to schedule a frank call with my own campaign team.