The Saskatchewan NDP just got 112k votes. It's the 3rd lowest since its predecessor CCF won 82k in 1938 while fending off the Social Credit insurgency, and just above their first result in 1934 (103k). The decline parallels other provincial NDPs which have won office since 1990.

Here's the Saskatchewan CCF/NDP in defeat:

1964: 269k
1968: 189k

1982: 201k
1986: 248k

2007: 169k
2011: 128k
2016: 130k
2020: 112k

After the 1991 avalanche of 276k, the Sask NDP has not cracked 200k votes. Douglas did it 5 times, Blakeney twice out of 3 elections.

One could blame the pandemic on record low voter turnout of 47 percent. But it has also fallen 10 points each election since 2007. But it's worth noting the Sask Party's vote totals have stayed above 230k in every election since they first won in 2007. It's the NDP that's losing.

The SK NDP's vote collapse mirrors the 1995 defeat of Rae's 1-term government. The ONDP took 23 years to climb back to official opposition. In two-party BC, the NDP lost 4 elections after their 1991-2002 regime (they lost the popular vote in 96) before winning minority in 2017.

After Dexter's 1-term Nova Scotia NDP govt (2009-13), their 2017 result is the lowest since 1988. It's the 1st time under 100k since 1998.

In 2016, the MB NDP scored its lowest vote since 1962. It's "rebound" in 2019 is still 7% below Schreyer's 1969 minority govt breakthrough

All the NDP victories of the 1990s (Ontario, SK, BC, MB) saw capitulation to the precepts and parameters of permanent austerity and neoliberal restructuring. This included open assaults on their own organized working-class base. A similar dynamic took place with the NS NDP.

Despite the exceptionalities of Alberta's oil economy, the AB NDP govt of 2015-19 followed a pattern not unlike that of the Ontario NDP: it quickly failed to confront capital (auto insurance in ON, oil royalties in AB). Almost all reforms were catch-up with other provinces.

There's a labour relations pattern, too: often delayed & watered-down labour laws; public sector austerity; and often some major betrayal: Rae Days, strikebreaking against SK nurses, NS NDP's failure to repeal Michelin law and strikebreaking against (privatized) paramedics.

It's not just labour: Rae and Harcourt launched public campaigns against "welfare cheats"; Rae allowed his own NDP cabinet members to vote against same-sex unions; a racist/colonial prisons agenda in MB; not reversing crown privatizations in SK; not raising AB oil royalties.

In the western provinces, aspirations and political priorities of those who voted NDP in the 1990s were mandates to reverse the privatizations, cuts and union-busting of Devine, Filmon and the BC Socreds. As for Rae, Dexter, Notley: all were elected to punish the establishment.

But popular sentiments expressed at the ballot box were mauled or simply withered with the NDP in office. As the next election approached, demoralization and disengagement was met with political blackmail from the NDP: "It would be a lot worse with the other guys!"

But it's a lot worse precisely because the NDP alienates and even beats up on its voting base. And this paralyzes and divides the unions and their memberships - the only organized force in society capable of blunting or stopping a counter-attack from a new right-wing government.

For 30 years, the right has capitalized on popular discontent and confusion sewed by the NDP's conduct: Harris, Campbell, McNeil, Kenney declare war on unions. Others like Wall, Pallister, Moe avoid big set-piece battles but still deliver death by a thousand cuts.

The consequence has been a fundamental transformation of the NDP from top to bottom. Labour's NDP allegiances have fragmented and narrowed, resulting in a demotion of its power in the party. Once-strong allegiances from LGBTQ+ and environmental forces have been broken.

Unelected consultants, inherited safe seats, and an entrenched caucus call the shots without any democratic accountability. Conventions and nominations are anti-democratic gong shows. The vast majority of riding associations have no political life outside of elections.

This trajectory and transformation is made possible by Canada's working-class movements suffering catastrophic and historic defeats in the 1990s and 2000s - defeats inflicted by the business class, the right-wing, and the NDP itself.

Who doubts the pattern will hold with Horgan?