Ontario Election 2022

[Benjamin Frank]

and now it IS 4 NDP MPPs not running again. Rima Berns-McGown has announced she will not reoffer in Beaches-East York.

I think this could actually be an opportunity for the ONDP to trade up. Nothing against Rima but she was very passionate a bit of a flakey academic social justice warrior type who got the nomination unopposed in 2018 when the conventional wisdom was that the NDP would have a hard time winning back that seat. I suspect this could be a good opportunity for the NDP to run someone high profile who would be seen as "cabinet minister material"

From a distance, as unpopular as the Ford P.Cs were in their first year in government, the NDP seemed to be even more unpopular as the official opposition.  A large amount of this seemed to stem from Rima Berns-McGown being the Deputy Leader and her promoting a very left wing 'social justice warrior' agenda.  The NDP seems to have shifted away from that since her demotion.

[Benjamin Frank]

Rima Berns-McGown was never deputy leader, never had much of a profile and would have been totally unknown to about 99% of the population.

Sorry, you are correct.  I mixed her up with Sara Singh who still is Deputy Leader but who was the seemingly high profile Attorney General critic in 2018/2019 but was then demoted.

[Benjamin Frank]

Rima Berns-McGown was never deputy leader, never had much of a profile and would have been totally unknown to about 99% of the population.

Sorry, you are correct.  I mixed her up with Sara Singh who still is Deputy Leader but who was the seemingly high profile Attorney General critic in 2018/2019 but was then demoted.

Whether RMMcG or SS, the public wouldn't have noticed, because Doug Ford's genetically Reagan-style "there you go again" re left-opposition.  And face it; the NDP's generic reputation precedes it.  It's *expected* to be a "woke-type" party, and lives or dies on that particular battlefield.

Like I said, I'm from a distance from Ontario and don't see a lot, but I did see opinion polls in Ontario around 2019 that showed the NDP as the official NDP even more unpopular than the government and I saw news stories and tweets quoting people saying the NDP was obsessed with SJW type stuff, and I believe the name most often mentioned with that was Sara Singh who was then the Attorney General critic.  She was then removed from that role and support for the NDP seemed to steadily rise after that.

I certainly acknowledge I could be wrong about this and obviously memory is a strange thing.

[Benjamin Frank]

Rima Berns-McGown was never deputy leader, never had much of a profile and would have been totally unknown to about 99% of the population.

Sorry, you are correct.  I mixed her up with Sara Singh who still is Deputy Leader but who was the seemingly high profile Attorney General critic in 2018/2019 but was then demoted.

Whether RMMcG or SS, the public wouldn't have noticed, because Doug Ford's genetically Reagan-style "there you go again" re left-opposition.  And face it; the NDP's generic reputation precedes it.  It's *expected* to be a "woke-type" party, and lives or dies on that particular battlefield.

Like I said, I'm from a distance from Ontario and don't see a lot, but I did see opinion polls in Ontario around 2019 that showed the NDP as the official NDP even more unpopular than the government and I saw news stories and tweets quoting people saying the NDP was obsessed with SJW type stuff, and I believe the name most often mentioned with that was Sara Singh who was then the Attorney General critic.  She was then removed from that role and support for the NDP seemed to steadily rise after that.

I certainly acknowledge I could be wrong about this and obviously memory is a strange thing.

I hardly think that most Ontario residents primary (or even close to fifth place) priority in deciding upon who to support in the upcoming provincial election is related to any "woke-type" issues.

To non-Ontarians, there seems to be an unawareness that the significant majority of Ontario voters think that federal leaders lead every political party until a provinical campaign in "underway in earnest".  If a simple question were asked in an Ontario opinion poll at present of "In the next provincial election who will be leading the [insert name] party?", I fully expect that more Ontario voters would respond Justin Trudeau than Steven Del Duca.

In the 2018 provincial election, despite Kathleen Wynne registering in every opinion poll at the time as the least popular provincial premier across Canada, it was not until the first leadership debate was held that Ontario Liberal Party support in provincial polls declined significantly and IMHO average Ontario voters were "put on notice" of who was actually leading the three largest parties in the actual provincial election underway.  It sounds odd to non-Ontarians, but the voters surveyed in one opinion poll could respond that they did not like Wynne once her name was put into the question, while voters in a generic opinion poll about political party preferences would have been thinking about Justin Trudeau when answering a generic question of "Which party will you support in the next Ontario election?"

Just cuz it happened last time does not mean it must happen again this time.  But, Del Duca has made so little impression on Ontario voters that I think his appearance in the first Ontario leaders' debate this time will also harm Liberal levels of support, just by reminding Ontario voters that Justin Trudeau is not actually the Liberal party leader for the upcoming provincial election.

Anything can happen, but Andrea Horwath is a seasoned debater and has a "net positive" in the role of party leader in opinion polls, while Del Duca is unknown and bland, at best.  I am not willing to mortgage my home on it, but I would bet that there will be a significant decline in Liberal Party support after the first provincial Leaders' debate (unless there is some other significant event that calls to the attention of "average voters" [yunno, the kind who do not post on boards like this one] who is actually leading the Ontario parties) in the 2022 Ontario election, similar to the decline that occurred in the 2018 election.  Del Duca does not have the intense levels of dislike that Wynne had developed by early 2018, but having no impression of the Liberal Party Leader among Ontario voters should be close enough to the conditions that existed in 2018 to scare Ontario Liberal party "election planners", when there is every reason to believe that Horwath will make a similar good impression on Ontario voters to what she did in 2018 once Ontario voters are reminded who leads each provincial party.

I'm not sure how much this relates to what I said. I was not referring to the upcoming election but to 2018-2019 when the NDP, led by Sara Singh as Attorney General critic, supposedly focused on 'woke' issues and the harm that apparently did to the NDP in the polls.

I was not actually referring to, as was mentioned earlier, the NDP being lower in overall support at that time than they P.Cs, but to approval/disapproval ratings  which showed, again my memory is far from perfect, either the NDP or Andrea Horwath with lower approval/disapproval ratings than the P.Cs or Doug Ford at that time, which, given how poorly Doug Ford and the P.Cs were doing, is quite incredible.

So, on the one hand we have people here who I think are assuming American style attitudes towards Covid onto Ontarians and the consequences that could have on the election, versus arguing that Ontarians aren't concerned about overly 'woke' politicians when that seems to be one of the main things hurting the Democrats in the United States (of course inflation concerns are the main thing.)

[Benjamin Frank]

What exactly are these "woke issues" (sic.) that Sara Singh supposedly focused on as Attorney General critic two years ago? I follow Ontario politics pretty closely and i honestly have no idea what this is in reference to?

You are testing my memory too much!

[Benjamin Frank]

Kevin Yarde lost renomination.

[Benjamin Frank]

Not sure why Yarde lost, but I was surprised the party didn't chose a Sikh candidate last time in the first place. I guess Sandeep Singh was able to get a lot of the Sikh community to sign party memberships to win.

Great news about Wong-Tam. Every time we get a by-election in Toronto Centre, I always float her name as the only person who could win the seat for the NDP. Let's see if that can ring true (though, in a wave general election, her personal popularity might not be enough)

Not enough Yarde signs.

[Benjamin Frank]

FYI, if Horwath had quit after the 2014 election the heir apparent would have been Catherine Fife of Waterloo.

If Horwath is so unpopular how is it that she took over the NDP when it had lost official party status in three straight elections and had just 9 seats and she took the party from 9 seats to 17 in 2011 to 20 in 2014 and then to 40 in 2018}

I don't disagree with you and I know you are being rhetorical, but the answer to your question (which you might already know the answer to) is that she built the NDP in a more populist left wing direction that was apparently not all the popular with former NDP types in Toronto (even though they voted NDP in 2018) but was more popular in the 'secondary cities' of Ontario, building, I think, on the NDP popularity in the North, and the already existing popularity in some of these cities, especially Hamilton and Windsor.  So, she helped add more in the cities of London, Kitchener and the Niagara Region.

The NDP after the 2018 election was the leading party in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontario.  

Of course, the NDP also had breakthroughs in Brampton, but that may be more attributable to Jagmeet Singh, though I could be totally wrong about that.

[Benjamin Frank]

If the Mainstreet Polls are correct it looks like the P.Cs are peaking at the right time. Other than there are 6 less seats, I think the riding results could be pretty much the same as in the 1987 election (switching over the P.C/Liberals) when the results were 95 Liberals, 19 New Democrats and 16 P.Cs

Although the P.Cs will win nowhere near the same share of the vote as the Liberals did in 1987 (47.3%),  the battle for second place looks very similar. In 1987, the NDP received 25.7% of the vote and the P.Cs 24.7%

[Benjamin Frank]

FYI, if Horwath had quit after the 2014 election the heir apparent would have been Catherine Fife of Waterloo.

If Horwath is so unpopular how is it that she took over the NDP when it had lost official party status in three straight elections and had just 9 seats and she took the party from 9 seats to 17 in 2011 to 20 in 2014 and then to 40 in 2018}

I don't disagree with you and I know you are being rhetorical, but the answer to your question (which you might already know the answer to) is that she built the NDP in a more populist left wing direction that was apparently not all the popular with former NDP types in Toronto (even though they voted NDP in 2018) but was more popular in the 'secondary cities' of Ontario, building, I think, on the NDP popularity in the North, and the already existing popularity in some of these cities, especially Hamilton and Windsor.  So, she helped add more in the cities of London, Kitchener and the Niagara Region.

The NDP after the 2018 election was the leading party in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontario.  

Of course, the NDP also had breakthroughs in Brampton, but that may be more attributable to Jagmeet Singh, though I could be totally wrong about that.

Yeah, I think the whole spin here is "Jagmeet as ONDP leader could have done better".  (And for all one knows, Jagmeet's charisma could have swept aside heir-presumptive Fife in much the same manner that he swept aside Charlie Angus federally).

And yes, those Brampton breakthroughs in '18 were totally due to the "Jagmeet effect" (and the ghost thereof was already present in '14).  That said, I still think it's highly hypothetical/speculative to assume that a Jagmeet leadership would have "broken the plateau" in '18 in a way that Andrea Horwath couldn't--he probably would have swept the Brampton seats rather than just getting half of them, but beyond that he'd be running against *Doug Ford's* own populist strengths (to say nothing of the unfortunate ammunition that could be deployed against the glib-guy-with-a-turban).  And on top of that, had Premier Jagmeet somehow succeeded in '18, his party's stumblebum-in-power rep could well have re-asserted itself by '22 and they might have come out of this election with virtually the same seat totals Andrea's likely to get (shades of Bob Rae, or Darrell Dexter).

I'm not saying *any* of that as an absolute likelihood.  However, it's yet another one of those reasons why it's best to take a fine-grained "it's complicated" approach to *any* winning-or-losing NDP (or just plain "progressive") electoral prospects, rather than put too many eggs in the election-winning basket--particularly as a lot of what cannot be achieved through actual ballot-box victory can be induced extra-electorally through deal-making and coalition-building and lobbying.

So re "who gives a sh*t about electoral poetry when healthcare, education, childcare, transport, & housing are all on the line!": that's where psephology, rather than simple "politics", kicks in.  The study of fine-grained electoral results can mitigate many a so-called "disappointing" result, highlight subtleties, and serve as guidelines for the future as well as coordinates for electorally "knowing about a place"--the way I see it, even pin-prick opposition results in ridings like Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke are "meaningful", better than just treating it as a monolithic abandon-hope Conservative vote sink.

Otherwise, you might as well be saying, in a case like this, "who gives a sh*t about architectural importance when it's a dysfunctional eyesore".  (Almost as if architectural historians and Brutalist buffs were "vested interests" much like pro-413 developer lobbyists)

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/03/14/cumbernauld-brutalist-town-centre-demolition-outrage/

I was just trying to rationalize why the NDP gained in the Toronto suburb of Brampton in addition to the 'secondary cities' of Kitchener, Windsor, Hamilton, London and the Niagara Region.

If you remember the 2014 election where the NDP ended up with the same number of seats that they had going in (a gain from the 2011 election because they won 3 ridings in byelections) but they lost seats in Toronto while gaining seats in these 'secondary cities.'

Other than Hamilton and Windsor these areas have not particularly been NDP areas historically (the riding of Welland-Thorold in the Niagara region had been NDP historically as had the Waterloo region federally with Max Saltzman) and Andrea Horwath has clearly had success in her three elections as leader building the NDP up in these areas.

However, I was wrong when I said the NDP was the leading party in these areas though, the P.Cs won slightly more ridings in 2018 in Midwestern and Southwestern Ontrario in 2018.  I forgot that the Liberals won zero seats in those regions in 2018.

*The point about the NDP losing seats in Toronto in 2014 under Andrea Horwath is that the NDP Toronto elite felt that the election was a major loss even though they ended up with the same total number of ridings simply because they lost seats in Toronto.

So, my point was simply that depending on what happens in this election that Andrea Horwath has remade the Ontario NDP 'in her image' as a left wing populist party that doesn't appeal to as many people in Toronto as the NDP had previously, but appeals more in these 'secondary cities.'

I felt I had to rationalize Brampton in 2018 because pointing all that out left open the response of "that can't really be correct because it doesn't explain how the NDP won those ridings in Brampton, which is a suburban city and not a 'secondary city.'

[Benjamin Frank]

The problem is that Ontario is not the natural home for conservative politics, Doug Ford was a weak candidate in 2018 and the liberal self-destruction speaks for itself, Yet horwath has not been able to win that election and even winning oppostion status is looking like it'll fade away despite another poor liberal leader. Many other provincal NDP parites have managed to form governments or even displace the liberals as a major provincial party, but despite cirumstances being perfect horwath has not been able to do it.

If Ontario's not "the natural home for conservative politics", then how come the Big Blue Machine ruled from 1943 to 1985?  And yeah, I know the argument that it wasn't the same as *today's* Conservatives; but maybe also, as it turns out, Doug Ford isn't the "weak candidate" you presume--or at least, he's "strong where it counts" (thus the special nature of Ford Nation populism)--and even if he were so weak, he had and has a strong party machine behind him.  (Also, one might argue that thanks to changes in media consumption and political engagement over the decades, Ontario, like so many other places, has a bit of a "weak electorate" problem--that is, one that's incapable of clueing into how a Doug Ford might seem so much more of a leadership cartoon than Robarts or Davis were.)

And the "many other NDP parties" are all in Western Canada, where the political culture's different and historically far more favourable to NDP default-left populism.  Sadly, Ontario's too "Central Canadian" for that to be such an easy task; the entrenched Laurentian consensus puts the thumb upon the Lib/Con binary scale, albeit not to the same degree as in the Atlantic Provinces.

Whether one likes it or not, when it comes to "blowing it", Horwath vs Doug Ford provincially in '18 is *not* in the same brain-stem-disconnected category as Smitherman vs Rob Ford mayorally in '10.  And ultimately, rather than grousing over Doug Ford's so-called weaknesses, maybe it's worth engaging to his *strengths*--even if they're not precisely the kind of "strengths" that are your or my own cup of tea.  "Seeking to understand" is not always a matter of caving to the so-called "deplorables"...

I disagree with that in regards to the NDP in the West.  There is no major provincial Liberal Party in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (and the B.C Liberal party isn't 'liberal'.)  It has been said by many that John Horgan was the 'best Liberal premier in British Columbia' 'Rachel Notley was the best Liberal premier' in Alberta, Roy Romanow was the 'best Liberal premier' in Saskatchewan and that Gary Doer was the 'best Liberal premier' in Manitoba.

Where the Liberal Party is strong, historically the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador, presently in Nova Scotia, from 1995-2011 or so in Ontario and presently in Saskatchewan (even though there is no real Liberal Party in Saskatchewan) the NDP electorate is basically a coalition of isolated industrial/indigenous Northerners (industrial Cape Breton being the equivalent in Nova Scotia) and central areas of the big city/cities or, essentially, the disaffected left.

[Benjamin Frank]

The idea that Jagmeet Singh was destined to become premier had he stayed in Ontario politics doesn't stand up to a basic examination of his record in federal politics.

Well, it's good that nobody suggested ITT that Singh was destined to be Premier had he stayed in Ontario politics, then

FWIW Mainstreet today has a bit of a reversion to the mean with the NDP bouncing back from 20.8% yesterday to 23.4 today and that puts them more firmly in second place in seats. So when Marit Stiles gets acclaimed at the successor to Horwath sometime in the coming year she will be leader of the opposition and likely to be far more effective than Horwath was. The NDP should hope that Del Duca wins his seat that way the Liberals are stuck with him for another election!

Why the confidence that Marit Stiles will be the next leader? Davenport seems to me to be a seat full of exactly the sort of easily-led, sorry, promiscuous progressives who will flock to an OLP they've been told is the real opposition again.

The federal NDP came within 65 votes of winning Davenport when the federal Liberals took 37% across the province and the NDP took just 17%. I don’t think Stiles had much to worry about when the provincewide gap is 3 or 4 points and not 20! But that’s beside the point, the NDP will hopefully choose the most capable person as their next leader based on their skills as a communicator and as a leader I don’t see how the riding the next leader represents is of much relevance. Was the federal ndp wrong to have picked Jack Layton as leader Because his riding was Toronto Danforth?

Yeah, I was gonna say, federal & provincial settings obviously aren't exactly comparable, but when the riding was very close in the last federal election & only just barely managed to stay Liberal, it'd seem that Stiles's chances, as a high-profile MPP in her own right already, are in a good state of affairs, not least given the the sheer scale of her 2018 victory. I mean, Jerry Levitan can certainly expect to improve on the OLP's rock-bottom 2018 result, sure, but you'd expect it to have been treated as something of more of an actual high-profile race than it's been thus far if they thought that he was actually gonna be able to win. Hell, she's the Ford's government's critic on the issue that they've arguably f**ked up the most; if the OLP wants to prove that it's the real opposition, then it should show that an O.O. frontbencher like Stiles isn't.

Marit Stiles defacto opposes marijuana retail outlets in Toronto.

https://www.maritstiles.ca/bill225

Seriously if consumers want more marijuana retail outlets in a city, who is Marit Stiles to tell people what shops should and shouldn't operate?

Nobody who is this ditzy about free market principles that shouldn't even be a matter of disagreement should ever become leader of a major political party.

(Water isn't wet! There are too many profitable marijuana retail outlets! the people don't want that many stores, that's why they're all profitable!)

[Benjamin Frank]

So, my point was simply that depending on what happens in this election that Andrea Horwath has remade the Ontario NDP 'in her image' as a left wing populist party that doesn't appeal to as many people in Toronto as the NDP had previously, but appeals more in these 'secondary cities.'

I felt I had to rationalize Brampton in 2018 because pointing all that out left open the response of "that can't really be correct because it doesn't explain how the NDP won those ridings in Brampton, which is a suburban city and not a 'secondary city.'

Actually, this is where "2014 Andrea" seems to have coloured a lot of impressions of her; because if anything, her '18 campaign marked an urban/Toronto-friendly "correction" from that misstep.  And indeed, if she ironically *lost* steam anywhere in 2018, it was with that erstwhile Andrea '14 populist-heartland "labour vote", whose hoped-for target drifted to Ford Nation instead--in the process of plugging one hole in their '14 strategy, they opened up another hole.  (Remember all that '14-based talk about places like Sarnia and Chatham-Kent being low-hanging Dipper fruit?)  Meanwhile, a lot of those so-called "secondary city" gains were actually more urban/cosmopolitan than "heartland" in nature--places with a modern campus/tech/service-economy element.  As far as other seats go, she gained *share* off the entrails of the Libs; but the Tories gained more and sealed victory.  And when it comes to Brampton: what was plain and clear in '18 was already evident in utero in '14--not just w/Jagmeet, but w/an unforeseen strong 2nd in Brampton-Springdale and a near-2nd in Brampton West.  All because of the viral, localized "Jagmeet effect".

Well, some. Kitchener (as opposed to Waterloo) isn't all that wealthy and nor is London.

[Benjamin Frank]

The problem is that Ontario is not the natural home for conservative politics, Doug Ford was a weak candidate in 2018 and the liberal self-destruction speaks for itself, Yet horwath has not been able to win that election and even winning oppostion status is looking like it'll fade away despite another poor liberal leader. Many other provincal NDP parites have managed to form governments or even displace the liberals as a major provincial party, but despite cirumstances being perfect horwath has not been able to do it.

If Ontario's not "the natural home for conservative politics", then how come the Big Blue Machine ruled from 1943 to 1985?  And yeah, I know the argument that it wasn't the same as *today's* Conservatives; but maybe also, as it turns out, Doug Ford isn't the "weak candidate" you presume--or at least, he's "strong where it counts" (thus the special nature of Ford Nation populism)--and even if he were so weak, he had and has a strong party machine behind him.  (Also, one might argue that thanks to changes in media consumption and political engagement over the decades, Ontario, like so many other places, has a bit of a "weak electorate" problem--that is, one that's incapable of clueing into how a Doug Ford might seem so much more of a leadership cartoon than Robarts or Davis were.)

And the "many other NDP parties" are all in Western Canada, where the political culture's different and historically far more favourable to NDP default-left populism.  Sadly, Ontario's too "Central Canadian" for that to be such an easy task; the entrenched Laurentian consensus puts the thumb upon the Lib/Con binary scale, albeit not to the same degree as in the Atlantic Provinces.

Whether one likes it or not, when it comes to "blowing it", Horwath vs Doug Ford provincially in '18 is *not* in the same brain-stem-disconnected category as Smitherman vs Rob Ford mayorally in '10.  And ultimately, rather than grousing over Doug Ford's so-called weaknesses, maybe it's worth engaging to his *strengths*--even if they're not precisely the kind of "strengths" that are your or my own cup of tea.  "Seeking to understand" is not always a matter of caving to the so-called "deplorables"...

I disagree with that in regards to the NDP in the West.  There is no major provincial Liberal Party in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (and the B.C Liberal party isn't 'liberal'.)  It has been said by many that John Horgan was the 'best Liberal premier in British Columbia' 'Rachel Notley was the best Liberal premier' in Alberta, Roy Romanow was the 'best Liberal premier' in Saskatchewan and that Gary Doer was the 'best Liberal premier' in Manitoba.

Where the Liberal Party is strong, historically the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador, presently in Nova Scotia, from 1995-2011 or so in Ontario and presently in Saskatchewan (even though there is no real Liberal Party in Saskatchewan) the NDP electorate is basically a coalition of isolated industrial/indigenous Northerners (industrial Cape Breton being the equivalent in Nova Scotia) and central areas of the big city/cities or, essentially, the disaffected left.

You're saying you're disagreeing re the NDP in the West, yet you're actually agreeing with and affirming my point re the political culture being "different out there".

And as far as Ontario goes; I think that, really, the moments when the CCF/NDP lineage has been more than such marginalia have been blips in the bigger picture--Joliffe in the 40s, Lewis in the 70s, the Rae government of course, and presumably Horwath in '18.  The NDP's clout is like a grunge record:  soft, then LOUD, then soft, then LOUD...

I don't think so. I think I'm saying that the NDP is successful in the west because they govern more like Liberals.  When the NDP governed in British Columbia more like NDP activist hardliners, they didn't remain popular for long.

[Benjamin Frank]

The Ontario Liberals and the NDP have taken positions on giving municipalities more power to limit the concentration of cannabis stores. It’s a very popular position to take. My friends and neighbours all buy cannabis from time to time and they all complain that there are way too many cannabis shops and that they are killing the street life in the neighborhood

1.Clustering of stores can be popular with many people in an area as well because the stores can offer different varities (not just in regards to marijuana) and become its own type of community. I can understand that the locals may not like it, but there can always be tradeoffs like that in an urban community. My understanding though is that these things tend to happen in downtown areas where there usually aren't a lot of homes (like an 'entertainment district' of bars, restaurants, movie theatres, play houses, art galleries and the like.)

2.Part of the problem may be that other municipalities have outright banned marijuana outlets, which I don't think should be allowed for a legal (though regulated) product.  So, this may force some people to go to other municipalities which means there are more shops in the municipality where they are legal than there would otherwise be.

3.In general I agree with Doug Ford's view on this. If there are too many stores, the market will take care of itself:

Ford said clustering is a temporary problem that market forces will solve without government intervention.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s cannabis or another type of store. The market will take care of it. There’s no way you can cluster any type of business beside each other. It’s like putting six convenience stores together. There’s going to be two that might survive,” he said at a campaign stop in London, Ont., on Saturday.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ontario-election-cannabis-policy/

While I think Doug Ford is making up his own numbers here in a not all that different way than the opposition paries (not just Marit Stiles) are in arbitrarily deciding what is 'too many stores', I think the economic principle Ford is arguing is absolutely correct.

[Benjamin Frank]

So, my point was simply that depending on what happens in this election that Andrea Horwath has remade the Ontario NDP 'in her image' as a left wing populist party that doesn't appeal to as many people in Toronto as the NDP had previously, but appeals more in these 'secondary cities.'

I felt I had to rationalize Brampton in 2018 because pointing all that out left open the response of "that can't really be correct because it doesn't explain how the NDP won those ridings in Brampton, which is a suburban city and not a 'secondary city.'

Actually, this is where "2014 Andrea" seems to have coloured a lot of impressions of her; because if anything, her '18 campaign marked an urban/Toronto-friendly "correction" from that misstep.  And indeed, if she ironically *lost* steam anywhere in 2018, it was with that erstwhile Andrea '14 populist-heartland "labour vote", whose hoped-for target drifted to Ford Nation instead--in the process of plugging one hole in their '14 strategy, they opened up another hole.  (Remember all that '14-based talk about places like Sarnia and Chatham-Kent being low-hanging Dipper fruit?)  Meanwhile, a lot of those so-called "secondary city" gains were actually more urban/cosmopolitan than "heartland" in nature--places with a modern campus/tech/service-economy element.  As far as other seats go, she gained *share* off the entrails of the Libs; but the Tories gained more and sealed victory.  And when it comes to Brampton: what was plain and clear in '18 was already evident in utero in '14--not just w/Jagmeet, but w/an unforeseen strong 2nd in Brampton-Springdale and a near-2nd in Brampton West.  All because of the viral, localized "Jagmeet effect".

Well, some. Kitchener (as opposed to Waterloo) isn't all that wealthy and nor is London.

Except that it isn't just about "wealth", it's also about culture--these aren't an Obama/Trump or Red Wall Labour kind of "not all that wealthy".  They're...urban hubs.  They're cosmopolitan, not rust belt.
 They're less conducive to Tory populism in the same way that the inner 416 is less conducive to Tory populism.  They're trending *away*, not toward; they're on the up-and-up.  And "not all that wealthy" might simply mean they're more affordably within reach to Justin/Jagmeet/Mike Morrice Millennials...

Okay, I've heard from others that Kitchener and London aren't doing all that great, so that's good to hear.

However, these areas aren't great for the NDP federally, although they do hold London-Fanshawe federally.  Not so much Kitchener (which isn't exactly favorable ground for the NDP federally either) but all of these other 'secondary cities' are fairly strongly Liberal federally.  I do think that Horwath did more or less successfully reposition the party as more populist left wing that favored the smaller urban centers and less so Torontocentric.

[Benjamin Frank]

If not for Oshawa the 905 would have been aesthetic to look at. Almost a PC sweep.

They swept in 1995 and 1999.

[Benjamin Frank]

Ridings I found interesting:

1. Barrie--Springwater: Surprisingly close, I guess the mayor really is popular. I thought the natural PC-ness of Barrie would make it a pretty easy win.

Lehman won the mayoralty in both 2014 and 2018 with around 90% of the vote.

[Benjamin Frank]

Wow, a very good night for the NDP considering expectations. It really helps to have the power of incumbency. Except if you're Gilles Bisson, or in Brampton.

Obviously Thunder Bay is the biggest shocker of the night. Huge win in Ottawa West-Nepean, too. Less of a surprise. The NDP continues to do better in Ottawa every election. The NDP hasn't won more than 1 seat in Ottawa since 1977. I'm also ecstatic the NDP is headed for second place in my riding of Ottawa South. First time since 1990 (when the riding had more left wing neighbourhoods). Toronto was also a pleasant surprise, holding on to St. Paul's and Humber River-Black Creek.

Sad to see the Singhs lose in Brampton.

Obviously there are some concerns for the NDP going ahead. Any riding where an incumbent steps down is automatically vulnerable. I guess Hamilton East and Windsor-Tecumseh are no longer tier 1 NDP seats.  

I'm sure this has been said here already in this thread, but I haven't read the election day comments, and it fits here. I think the NDP shold be very pleased with their seat total, but very disappointed with their vote total, dropping from around 34% to 24% of the vote.

[Benjamin Frank]

Ridings I found interesting:

1. Barrie--Springwater: Surprisingly close, I guess the mayor really is popular. I thought the natural PC-ness of Barrie would make it a pretty easy win.

Lehman won the mayoralty in both 2014 and 2018 with around 90% of the vote.

I know we like to sh*t on riding polls, but there were a couple that showed Lehman winning. Of course, I didn't believe them because the Liberals have never won either cracked Barrie seat before, and I know the area tends to over-poll for the Liberals.

Wiki mentioned that he declined running for the Liberal leadership in 2020. Irrespective of all else, the P.Cs winning because they morphed into centrist liberals and all the other theories, I have to think electing a leader who was both part of the previous government and did not hold a seat to be seen in opposition in the legislature, was the worst choice the Liberals could have made.

[Benjamin Frank]

More on the NDP in Ottawa.... Joel Harden beat Paul Dewar's high mark in 2011, winning 54% of the vote (Dewar only got 52% then). Looks like turnout made the difference. Ottawa Centre is known for very large turnouts (especially in federal elections), but only 55% showed up. Liberals stayed home.

Someone said to me “Liberals only vote when they are either enthusiastic or scared” and this time they were neither

This was one night when the NDp managed to run the tables on close races. They won the vast majority of close races they were involved in

It looks like only around 5 million voted which is about 800,000 less voters than in 2018.

[Benjamin Frank]

Wow, a very good night for the NDP considering expectations. It really helps to have the power of incumbency. Except if you're Gilles Bisson, or in Brampton.

Obviously Thunder Bay is the biggest shocker of the night. Huge win in Ottawa West-Nepean, too. Less of a surprise. The NDP continues to do better in Ottawa every election. The NDP hasn't won more than 1 seat in Ottawa since 1977. I'm also ecstatic the NDP is headed for second place in my riding of Ottawa South. First time since 1990 (when the riding had more left wing neighbourhoods). Toronto was also a pleasant surprise, holding on to St. Paul's and Humber River-Black Creek.

Sad to see the Singhs lose in Brampton.

Obviously there are some concerns for the NDP going ahead. Any riding where an incumbent steps down is automatically vulnerable. I guess Hamilton East and Windsor-Tecumseh are no longer tier 1 NDP seats.  

I'm sure this has been said here already in this thread, but I haven't read the election day comments, and it fits here. I think the NDP shold be very pleased with their seat total, but very disappointed with their vote total, dropping from around 34% to 24% of the vote.

I don't know about "very" disappointed--as I've said before, they're used to this.  And even I was preparing, at the beginning of the writ period, for this kind of low-to-mid-20s "reversion to upper mean", and I stated as much.

Even Andrea's resignation seems to be on an "up" kind of "down note", if a down note is what it is.  As I stated earlier in this thread, even if she lost ground, she was likely to leave her party in a better state than it was in when she assumed the leadership.  And...that's how it played out.  Del Duca was a hard landing; Horwath was a soft landing--she was hardly "humiliated" in the way a lot of naysayers would have it...

Oh sure, but it's still a setback that suggests big time that the NDP upper limits don't include forming a government.

[Benjamin Frank]

The NDP achieved the rare result in FPTP of an opposition party whose percent of seats exceeded its percent of votes. The NDP won exactly 25% of the seats (31/124) with 23.7% of the vote.