AMHERST, N.S. — From also-ran status, Cumberland-Colchester Green Party candidate Jason Blanch is seeing his political stock rise.
While he finished a distant third in Monday’s federal election, he saw his vote total soar from just three per cent four years ago to 13 per cent this time.
“I would’ve loved to have done better, but to go from three per cent four years ago to just over 13 per cent this time is amazing,” Blanch said while watching the results with party supporters at an Amherst restaurant. “I’m very happy with what I’ve seen.”
Blanch, who only got 807 votes in his first run at federal politics in the 2009 by-election and just 1,650 in 2015, had more than 5,500 votes with just a few polls to report late Monday night.
He said as he went door to door during the campaign he heard some people saying they were going to vote Green and others who said they would vote for him, but were voting strategically against either the Conservatives or Liberals.
“I would like to see what we would have if we have proportional representation where people knew their vote would count,” Blanch said. “Still, I’m not unhappy with what I’ve seen.”
Blanch said people told him at the door they found the election very divisive with attack-style politics. He believes he gained support from running a positive campaign.
“I’d like to see the demographics, but a lot of the senior voters I spoke to told me they were tired of the same thing over and over again. They kept voting blue or red and felt nothing ever changed,” he said. “At this point in their life, they said they had enough.”
Blanch, who is also an Amherst town councillor, also believes he gained support from people fearing climate change and rising sea levels. A message he heard was the time has come to do something for future generations.
He believes in a future federal vote he will be elected.
“The question I had going into this was would I have enough votes to run again and obviously seeing this I’m feeling confident there’s more work ahead,” said Blanch.
