If Thomas Mulcair were the leader of the Liberal or the Conservative party, he would probably be looking for a job instead of preparing to manage a diminished NDP caucus in a new Parliament.

Mulcair led the New Democrats to their second-best federal finish last month but that measure only looks good against the backdrop of more than half-a-century of defeats. A record for the most NDP seats lost in an election was also set on Oct. 19.

Mulcair, who sold himself to the New Democrats at the time of his leadership campaign on the promise of completing Jack Layton’s journey to government, has presided instead over a big leap backward.

To make matters worse, Justin Trudeau outflanked the party on the left in what amounts to yet another less than glorious first for the New Democrats.

And yet, to listen to NDP insiders, Mulcair’s job is safe.

His assertion that he plans to lead the party in the 2019 campaign seems to barely raise an eyebrow and the prospect of a campaign post-mortem comes across as more of a formality than a necessity.

For all intents and purposes, it is as if the NDP’s establishment is determined to keep a lid on the post-election discussion and a de facto leadership review.

It may be that many New Democrats don’t believe Mulcair actually means to stay on for another four years, or that they can’t think of a suitable replacement or an alternative winning strategy.

The election cost the party some of its brightest parliamentary stars and it is far from certain that the NDP — with a platform identical to that of the Liberals — would have fared as well as Trudeau did.

But it could also be that most New Democrats — from the top on down — are mostly relieved that Mulcair’s end-of-campaign attacks on Trudeau failed to deprive the Liberals of a victory.

An EKOS poll published this week reveals that NDP voters are more satisfied with the outcome of the election that set the party back last month than they were with winning more than a hundred seats and the title of official Opposition in the previous campaign.

Back in 2011, disappointment with the result ran at 51 per cent among NDP voters. By comparison, only 28 per cent profess to be unhappy about this year’s outcome against 41 per cent who say they are satisfied with Trudeau’s victory.

Clearly, a critical mass of New Democrat supporters seems more than willing to accept a weaker hand in the House of Commons for their party in exchange for a non-Conservative government.

Had Mulcair kept more seats but, in doing so, prevented the Liberals from beating the Conservatives, he would probably have committed a greater sin in the eye of many New Democrats than in leading the party back to third place.

If the voters who stuck with the NDP last month are more relieved by the Conservative defeat than saddened by their own, those who switched to the Liberals to ensure Harper was not re-elected probably feel even more strongly about keeping the Conservatives at bay.

It may be hard going forward for the federal NDP to bring such voters home for as long as they see a return to Conservative rule as the greatest threat on their electoral horizon.

In post-referendum Quebec, voters have coalesced behind the Liberal party the better to deny the Parti Québécois a majority mandate and an opportunity to resume its efforts to achieve sovereignty.

From one election to the next, keeping the PQ out of power has become a priority for more Quebecers, often superseding most other considerations.

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In Ontario, the desire of many progressive voters to not return to the days of Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution has contributed to the uncommonly long Liberal tenure at Queen’s Park, and has helped keep the NDP in the provincial margin.

As the Conservatives federally and in some provinces have moved further right over the past two decades, progressive voters have become more adverse to the risks of spreading their support across the non-conservative spectrum. After the Harper decade, the seeds of that fear are planted deep inside the NDP.