Campaign manager to replace NDP candidate Stefan Jonasson in Winnipeg

The NDP hasa new candidate in Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley.

Tom Paulley will take over the race from Stefan Jonasson.

The party asked Jonasson to drop out after an online comment surfaced in which he compared an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group to the Taliban.

• Winnipeg NDP candidate quits over social media posts linking Jewish sect to Taliban
• Stefan Jonasson: 'I really wish that my party would have stood with me'

Paulley was Jonasson's campaign manager and ran in the riding in 2011.

Incumbent Steven Fletcher is runningfor the Conservatives. Liberal Doug Eyolfson and Green Kevin Nichols are also running in the riding.

Pollsters tell CBC Fletcher's seat is considered fairly safe to stay in Conservative hands.

"Local candidates don't make that much of a difference, is the reality." saidProbe Research vice presidentCurtis Brown.

In the last election, Fletcher beat all three opposing candidates combined.

"People who vote NDP in that riding might not vote at all. Or perhaps they may go to the Greens," said political scientist Chris Adams.

Adams believes Stefan Jonasson's comments were taken out of context, but he says the NDP party hierarchy was bound to move swiftly.

"The NDP are in a dogfight in Quebec. Anything remotely touching on terrorism, Muslim women; anything like that-they are hot-button issues lately," Adams tells CBC News.

And what's more, Adams says, Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley is not a riding they were poised to take.

"They had no chance of winning [that seat] in Winnipeg, so they had nothing to gain by allowing it [Jonasson's remarks] to drag out."