He initially sought the NDP nomination in the northeastern Winnipeg division of Radisson, but he lost to Harry Shafransky.
The result, along with another by-election win on the same day, gave Premier Edward Schreyer a stable majority government in the provincial legislature.
Walding served as a backbench supporter of the Schreyer government and developed a strong reputation for constituency work.
After Schreyer's appointment as Governor General of Canada in 1979, Walding endorsed Sidney Green in his unsuccessful bid to become interim NDP leader.
In 1983 and 1984, Walding allowed the opposition Progressive Conservatives to stall passage of the Pawley government's re-entrenchment of French-language rights.
When NDP cabinet minister Andy Anstett restricted the amount of time that the bells could ring, the Conservatives boycotted the assembly entirely.
Sidney Green, who had left the NDP by then and also opposed French-language re-entrenchment, still argued that Walding was wrong to give the Conservatives a means to disrupt the legislative process.
Walding voted for an opposition amendment to his party's budget on March 8, 1988, despite having assured Finance Minister Eugene Kostyra that he would support it.
Earlier in the year, longtime cabinet minister Laurent Desjardins had essentially ceased attending legislative sessions.
Stewart argues that Walding's 1986 nomination victory set in motion a series of events that led to the defeat of the Meech Lake Accord on constitutional reform.
Just One Vote: From Jim Walding's Nomination to Constitutional Defeat (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2009).