Lessons from 2014: Was Glen Murray’s first mayoral race insurmountable or fleeting?

Now that the first poll of the 2022 Winnipeg mayoral race suggests that Glen Murray has an early and huge lead, some voters might be tempted to conclude that the remaining three months of this campaign won’t matter much.

It would be a mistake.

What happens in the summer of an election year in Winnipeg doesn’t necessarily translate into the fall, especially when the election is an open race with no incumbents.

The last time Winnipeg held such a race, many Winnipeggers were convinced that Judy Wasylycia-Leis was going to be the city’s next mayor.

In 2014, then-mayor Sam Katz decided that 10 years in office would be enough, especially after he stumbled upon a third term amid scandals involving Winnipeg police headquarters, new fire stations and major real estate transactions.

In the political vacuum, Wasylycia-Leis, a former NDP MP and MPP, took her second chance to become mayor in as many elections.

That summer, she was the candidate to beat. A Probe Research poll provided evidence for this claim, as it suggested Wasylycia-Leis had the support of 39% of decided voters in Winnipeg.

That same August 2014 poll placed former city councilor Gord Steeves second, with 23%. Privacy lawyer Brian Bowman was third at 16%.

While there was jubilation among some on the political left, Probe Research directors Curtis Brown and Scott MacKay warned that the campaigns were important.

And have they ever done it. The Steeves campaign imploded after veering far right under populist conservative Ken Lee. Bowman’s fortunes took off, as voters decided they preferred a shiny penny to a few well-worn coins.

Bowman won the 2014 mayoral race with 48% of the vote. Wasylycia-Leis finished a distant second, with 25%. A then-unknown academic named Robert-Falcon Ouellette finished third, with 16%.

Steeves finished in fourth place with a measly nine percent.

The 2014 example is instructive this week, when Probe Research presented mayoral support figures for 2022 somewhat similar to that fateful poll from two elections ago.

A Probe online poll of 622 Winnipeg adults earlier this month suggests that Murray, a former mayor of Winnipeg, has the support of 44% of decided Winnipeg voters.

St. James adviser Scott Gillingham was second with 16%, while Ouellete, who is back for a second kick in the box, is third with 13%.

The situation isn’t the same as 2014, but we have another big lead for a center-left candidate over the summer in a very open mayoral race.

Name recognition is a factor

Aaron Moore, who chairs the University of Winnipeg’s political science department, is not yet willing to hand over the keys to the mayor’s office to Glen Murray.

“At the start of the campaign, I think a lot of people weren’t really paying attention to it,” Moore said of the background to Probe’s July poll.

“So that reflects Murray’s name recognition more than anything, and the fact that he’s had a bit more media exposure than a lot of other candidates over the last month.”

Murray is a very familiar name to Winnipeggers, having spent nine years as a Fort Rouge city councilor and then another six in the mayor’s office.

Probe Research director Mary Agnes Welch agrees that name recognition is a major factor driving Murray right now.

“People aren’t fully committed to this race yet. There’s always that magic date after Labor Day where we really start to pay attention to it,” she said.

Further evidence that voters are not yet engaged is Ouellette’s solid third place finish. The former MP for Winnipeg Center has not held a press conference since registering his campaign in May.

He nonetheless beat out a number of candidates who ventured far more frequently into the public eye – including business consultant Jenny Motkaluk, social entrepreneurship advocate Shaun Loney and Wilderness Supply owner Rick Shone, all of whom have organized well-attended campaign launches.

“The image of the center-right” still blurred

A lack of commitment alone does not mean loss for Glen Murray. Welch points out that the former mayor appears to be attractive to a potentially winning combination of south Winnipeggers, older Winnipeggers and women.

“Having such a lead this far is quite an enviable position for the former mayor,” Welch said.

This track is not insurmountable. There is still time for centre-right voters to rally around a single candidate.

It could be Gillingham, a red Tory who squeezes the center. It could be Motkaluk, who has expressed views that put her more to the right.

It could also be Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood County. Kevin Klein, a newcomer who lands somewhere between Gillingham and Motkaluk.

“That center-right picture right now is still pretty murky,” Welch said.

Murray’s favorite status also invites closer scrutiny. Eighteen years have passed since he resigned as mayor of Winnipeg to run unsuccessfully as a candidate for the federal Liberal Party.

Murray then moved to Toronto and briefly considered running for mayor there before becoming a Liberal MLA for Ontario and Cabinet Minister.

He then left the Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne a year before an election to work for the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank. This gig only lasted 14 months.

In 2018, Murray returned to Winnipeg to work for a software company and said he was done with politics. Two years later, he ran to become leader of the federal Green Party, finishing fourth in that race.

Given this varied career, it’s no surprise that people from multiple political stripes work on Murray’s campaign. Keeping everyone in that coalition happy for three months can be just as difficult as maintaining an early lead.

So far, however, none of Murray’s challengers are catching fire like Brian Bowman did in 2014, when he slipped past Wasylycia-Leis and eventually passed her.