Garrison, Randall
	Godron, Fidelia
	Gustafson, Jeremy
	Hammond, Jamie
	Lesosky, Louis
	Merner, David
	Ney, Philip
	Pewarchuk, Randall
	Steffler, Josh
	Strandlund, Tyson
Incumbent:
	Randall Garrison

References:

Population (2016): Population (2011): Private dwellings: Dwellings occupied by usual residents: Land area Population Density			120834 112969 53281 50830 328.79 km² 367.5/km²
2015 Results - 2015 Prediction    Reference - Pundits’ Guide (2013 Rep. Order)
	Randall Garrison **	23836	35.00%
	David Merner	18622	27.40%
	Frances Litman	13575	19.90%
	Shari Lukens	11912	17.50%
	Tyson Strandlund	136	0.20%
2011 Results (redistributed)
		21305	37.61%
		22325	39.41%
		5494	9.70%
		7286	12.86%
Other		242	0.43%
Component Riding(s) (2003 Representation Order)
Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca    (88.97% of voters in current riding)    2011/2008/2004 Predictions    Reference - Pundits’ Guide
Saanich-Gulf Islands    (11.03% of voters in current riding)    2011/2008/2004 Predictions    Reference - Pundits’ Guide

	21/10/19	Tony Ducey 24.137.73.188
The Greens seem to be losing steam as the campaign closes but I think they win here.
	20/10/19	SG 173.180.127.229
This was a tight race, but with Green fortunes slipping and the NDP numbers rising, Garrison's incumbecy will probably see him through. I'm having a sense that Liz May will be the sole Green victor on Oct 21.
	19/10/19	Lifelong GV Resident 70.66.84.218
Despite the up-tick in the polls for the NDP, I still think David Merner and the Greens will take this. Riding level polls had both Sonia Furstenau and Adam Olson behind, but both one on election night. When you have a strong candidate who's been knocking on doors for a long time and has a strong team, they can outperform. Merner is in that category, he's been knocking on doors since last year and was incredibly active with a huge team of volunteers all summer. I think the increase in NDP support is bad news for Greens in Cowichan, but I think Merner is such a strong candidate that he's likely to weather it.
	18/10/19	Manny Toba 67.81.53.37
Polls now showing NDP gaining strength in BC at the expense of the Greens. Garrison should hang on to the seat.
	16/10/19	South Island Voter 24.68.122.74
I was toured around the entire riding, Esquimalt, Gorge area and into Sooke. Judging by lawn signs on private property the Greens outnumber every other party. I would say that this is going to be a close race between the Greens and NDP with Liberals in third.
	15/10/19	climate_voter 70.66.228.205
I wouldn't call it over for the Greens. 338 simply had the Greens in 3rd for 2 days, because the NDP's post-debate rise changed their showings in the polls (for pop. vote), which possibly modified the 338Canada scores. However, the Greens are back up to 58% probability for this riding on 338Canada, and a recent Mainstreet Research poll has the following: Green 25%, Con 23.5%, Libs 23.2%, and NDP 21.6%. Yes, this is going to be a very close riding. But overall, it appears as a 'coin-flip' which is 55-60% in David's favour, with the other 45-40% probability divided evenly among NDP-Lib-Con.
	13/10/19	Gone FIshimg 209.204.213.132
I don’t even pretend to have a thin veneer of understanding of this riding, living in southern Ontario and never having dipped my toes in the Pacific. However, I find it odd that someone muses “odd” that four parties in a Mainstreet poll are all in it. Seems to me this has been an area of the country that has been very diverse in it’s politics. Conservatives have held this in past, Greens and NDP both have support in the area, and BC is the English speaking version of Quebec when it comes to fickle voters who WILL change their stripes if they feel ignored. Remember Wacky Bennett and Bill Vanderzam and even John Turner’s failed Mulroney battles where he held out and won his seat late on election night? While the poling variances are not like they used to be, I look forward to some traditional later result riding adding to the drama of a possibly hung parliament.
	11/10/19	Eddie E. 106.209.248.237
Saanich Gulf lslands is the only safe Green seat. Esquimalt, Victoria and Nanaimo are all too close to call and Saanich Gulf lslands is the only safe Green seat. Esquimalt, Victoria and Nanaimo are all too close to call and are probably trending NDP. Singh helped himself in the debates and could rebound to save most of his seats in English Canada. May did not have great debates and Green appeal will, as per usual, trend downwards as the election get closer. May needs to do the right thing by her party and step down to allow younger, more charismatic leadership take the next step.
	09/10/19	R.O. 24.146.17.200
Somewhat confusing poll from mainstreet but they have all 4 major parties within a few points of each other here , which is uncommon and makes this an unusual race Four-way statistical tie in Vancouver Island riding, according to Mainstreet poll, By Marco Vigliotti. Published on Oct 9, 2019 10:42am https://ipolitics.ca/2019/10/09/four-way-statistical-tie-in-vancouver-island-riding-according-to-mainstreet-poll/
	09/10/19	Physastr Master 72.182.105.136
And so the annual pre-election Green implosion begins... 338 now has the Greens in third here, with the NDP ahead, and given the momentum it would be surprising to see them lose. I now realise that my Cowichan-Malahat-Langford post was somewhat missing the point in saying that the greens underperform relative to polls. While that was true, at least in federal elections (between 1 and 2 sigma lower than the pre-election polling average in the last four elections), more notable is the drop in the last two weeks of election campaigns. Last election, between two weeks before e-day and e-day itself, the Greens dropped from 5->3%. In 2011, it was 7->4%. In 2008 it was 10->7%. That's almost 40% on average. In the last two days, 338 has the greens down from 18->14% in BC, and I can't see them stopping the bleeding. The probable reason behind this is electoral viability, which the Greens constantly struggle to present to potential voters. It really isn't fair to them, the island is a feasible place for them to win, but in general elections local races get muddled into national waves, and in the back of peoples minds, there's a constant nagging idea that the Greens aren't a party that can win a significant number of seats nationally, amplified by our FPTP voting system. That's my theory at least. Regardless, the numbers don't (appear to) lie. The Greens are not likely to win here, and it should be changed to TCTC at least, if not NDP.
	22/09/19	R.O. 24.146.17.200
Looking thru the predictions something about this one seems premature , a riding which has often seen close races and has a longtime ndp incumbent. Don’t doubt the greens will win seats on Vancouver Island but there was a lot of talk in 2015 that the greens would win Victoria only for it to stay ndp. The cpc also almost won this riding in 2008 and 2011 , although its not really a top cpc target this year .
	19/09/19	A.S. 99.225.32.21
Even if he did well as a Lib in ‘15, there’s a certain smarminess about Merner’s Green shift that might leave me just a touch circumspect about his chances--though there’d be a strange baton-passing poetry to the riding’s 20-year-passage from Reformer-turned-Liberal Keith Martin to Liberal-turned-Green David Merner...
	12/08/20	Islander 64.251.72.235
Incumbent MP Randall Garrison is running for re-election. Garrison seems to be running a relatively weak campaign, and the Green candidate in the riding, David Merner, did extremely well running for the Liberals in 2015. When Elizabeth May inevitably resigns, Merner will likely be the next leader of the Green Party of Canada. Unlike Victoria, this riding is much more reliant on national results to influence its results, rather than candidate profiles. All four parties have some strength here, but the Green candidate coupled with a national swing (and the Greens spending resources here to take it) will see them victorious. I see the results as something like: GPC: 24,220 34.3% [+14.4%] NDP: 17,500 24.8% [-10.2%] CPC: 16,450 23.3% [+5.8%] LPC: 10,400 14.7% [-12.7%]
	30/05/19	Laurence Putnam 96.53.49.70
It will be some time before we can fully estimate to what extent the Green surge will steamroll t the traditional parties on Vancouver Island but something is definitely happening here that can no longer be ignored. From parts of this riding you can actually see the oil tankers coming in from Alaska on their way to the Cherry Point refinery just South of the border in WA. Pipeline politics and climate issues are already top of mind here in a traditionally left-wing riding. This could even be their strongest result after Saanich-Gulf Islands. Count this one along with the 3-5 others that could go Green in October.
	22/05/19	Sam 86.188.99.174
Through some error of my own, my prediction for here ended up in Nanaimo, but in the wake of the by-election, with a Green win bigger than I predicted, I stand by a Green call here too. Despite Garrison's incumbency, nobody has predicted he'll win. It's a rough time for the NDP.
	19/05/19	seasaw 99.225.244.232
Randall Garrison has been a good MP, but don't know if that's going to be enough to save his seat. I expect a lot of Liberal, along with some NDP and CPC votes to migrate to Green. If I'm right Green will take the riding and CPC and NDP will battle for second. Of course things may change and so may my prediction
	07/05/19	Lifelong GV Resident 70.66.88.225
Last night's Nanaimo by-election had good turnout as by-elections go. This suggests to me that the youth vote, which came out in unusually large numbers in 2015 thanks in part to Trudeaumania 2.0, may come out again in 2019, but this time for the Greens. The most recent update to the CBC Poll Tracker says that if they have a good night that the federal Greens may win as many as 11 seats in October, and that's with current polling. If there's a surge, then all bets are off. Nanaimo was at best the fourth-strongest target for the Greens (after May's riding, then Victoria, then Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke), yet the Greens won it anyway. Disaffected Liberals recently defected to the Greens in the Ontario provincial election giving the Greens their first ever seat there. It was disaffected Liberals powering the PEI Greens to official opposition status. All across BC the federal Liberals did unusually well in 2015, and many one-time Liberal voters are now up for grabs. Last night suggests the Greens may be the best positioned to capitalize, especially on Vancouver Island where the Greens are better organized and funded than elsewhere in Canada. Last night suggests this riding is far more likely to go Green that even some of the most optimistic projections would have suggested, and I was optimistic beforehand.
	03/04/19	Craig 130.18.104.137
While the Greens will surely target this seat, Randall Garrison is a fairly ‘green’ and very progressive NDP MP. That said, climate change is THE undisputed #1 issue in southern Vancouver Island and these are the most environmentalist ridings in Canada. This is probably Green target #3 or #4. Another thing to watch is if the Conservatives can potentially steal this on a four-way vote split. What happens to the Liberal vote will be key - the LPC is the least likely to win but they will be a critical spoiler. If that goes to the Conservatives and some splinters off to the Greens, it will only take a slight NDP leakage to give the CPC about 30-32% - and, if the NDP drops a bit, the seat. However, if the GPC with Merner takes much of the LPC vote, this seat turns Green. Garrison will likely need to hope that the Liberal vote splits about evenly and his support holds up. Too close to call.
	02/04/19	Lifelong GV Resident 70.66.88.225
David Merner surprised a lot of people by finishing second in 2015 as a Liberal. Now he's running for the Greens, and can speak to those people who voted Liberal last time but now are disenchanted over broken promises and scandals. Merner left the Liberals when they were at the top of their game over a point of principle, and I think voters will understand and even appreciate that. Since Merner left, things have trended downhill for the Liberals so his timing couldn't have been much better. As for the incumbent, he's done nothing wrong but he only squeaked through in a 4 way race last time. Since then his party's fortunes have deteriorated, opening this up for the Greens. Merner was the first Green candidate nominated on Vancouver Island to join E.May in this election cycle and he has been knocking on doors since last year. He'll have had a full year to introduce himself to voters and explain his principled switch from the Liberals to the Greens. In 2015 he was a relatively unknown Liberal candidate nominated only 7 months before election day yet he came a strong second, and his advantages in 2019 are significant. Summary: things have trended down for the Liberals and NDP since 2015, and trended up for the Greens in that same time, and the Greens have scooped up the second-place candidate from last time who's hit the ground running early.
	22/03/19	Islander 24.108.22.75
As mentioned below, David Merner is running for the Greens this time. With the Liberals waning in popularity (at least at this point) and the Greens polling nationally at 10%, Merner is probably bound to keep a good chunk of the vote he got in 2011 on top of what he will gain as a Green candidate. Randall Garrison does have a level of personal popularity here, but with the NDP only having taken this with 35% last time makes me think that Merner has the edge here, unless Green or NDP support begins to wane or rise, respectively. Also, I doubt the Conservative vote will grow much here this time considering how far they dropped in 2011.
	08/03/19	Sam 86.28.79.130
This is a close one. Randall Garrison should be favoured but the Greens are doing very well here, with former candidate David Merner running again. It's also a prime area for the Liberals to shed lots of votes which will go to the Greens. The NDP perform better with incumbents and can't be ruled out but Garrison is very vulnerable.
	21/02/19	climate_voter 184.66.50.181
Green candidate David Merner was a former Liberal candidate (in 2015), and knowing him/following his campaign personally, he has a lot of profile in his community. If he successfully votes from the following groups (apart from holding onto the committed Green base), he can become Canada's 2nd (or even 3rd) Green MP: 1) Liberal voters dissatisfied with: $4.5-billion Trans Mountain pipeline, massive bailouts/subsidies to fossil fuel companies, reneging of electoral reform, deficits, and Trudeau government ethics breaches/scandals (e.g. SNC Lavalin, Aga Khan) 2) NDP voters dissatisfied with Jagmeet Singh's support for LNG and his uncertain/flip-floppy stance on pipelines. 3) University/college students that struggle to pay their tuition and debt Apart from all that, ESS was a ridings where the Greens received one of the most biggest vote shares in the 2015 Federal Election. If the Greens really concentrate on this riding (in addition to Saanich-Gulf Islands, and maybe Victoria and Nanaimo-Ladysmith), David could potentially become Canada's next Green MP elected.