Ontario 2018 election

[ON Progressive]

I wouldn't mind if they're able to keep a few "John Tory Liberal" seats.

Same here. Those seats seem like they would go PC before going NDP.

[ON Progressive]

Don't have numbers since I am not subscribed, but Mainstreet is apparently saying on the daily tracker that PCs are down, and gains are split between OLP and NDP. Puts the NDP in first place by a hair.

[ON Progressive]

Today's Mainstreet riding polls are fantastic if you're a Conservative.  The idea of a rural orange wave across Southern Ontario a la '90 (which was far less probable in today's circumstances) looks like a pure fantasy at this point.  Also, the PCs are ahead in Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie.

It's very difficult to think of many PC seats that the NDP are poised to take.

Mainstreet riding polls have a very long history of underestimating left wing support (see: BC election)

[ON Progressive]

Nothing too surprising, really. Still not good news for the NDP's chances. Have to hope Mainstreet is indeed underpolling them.

I would say the PCs leading in Kenora-Rainy River (a 55% NDP seat) would be extremely surprising.

[ON Progressive]

I don't understand why Canada has no live caller polls like the US does. The fact IVR polls are our best polls is rather sad.

[ON Progressive]

I voted tonight. Literally nobody else was there other than my brother who voted with me and poll workers, but this is an advance voting poll in a small town on a Tuesday evening.

[ON Progressive]

Angus Reid is the second pollster to have the NDP at 40% in the 416, good news for the NDP and perhaps the PCs too, both polls have the OLP and PCs close together inn the 20's so we could see the NDP more then expected.

Angus Reid has the PCs up a mere 38-36 in the 905. That would be a very weak performance for the PCs since most polls have them up by double digits there.

[ON Progressive]

For the fun of it, I plugged all the results from yesterday and today into the TCTC simulator.  As you know, I don't think much of the simulator, but did it anyway.  This is what the result in parliamentary seats looks like:

QP MPP Seats (63 needed for majority)               
TCTC Simulator               
                          PC  NDP   Liberal   Government
               
Ipsos Reid           75   45   6      PC Majority
Mainstreet          71   53   0      PC Majority
Pollara                44   80   0      NDP Majority
Inovative           67   51   6      PC Majority
Angus Reid        78   46   0      PC Majority

I wouldn't draw too many conclusions, but the trend is pretty clear.  Unless NDP opens up at least a 5%+ lead, PC win.
               

Playing further with the TCTC simulator, it shows that it needs NDP-PC>6% for a minority situation and NDP-PC>7% for a clear NDP majority.  As I said, in spite of the known PC structural advantage, this is way over the top imho.  But it confirms that Andrea Horwath has her work cut out for her.

Yeah, I don't think the NDP need to win by 7%. They need to win by 4% I would say to be a clear favourite for a majority, when you take into account that TCTC's simulator does give ridiculously high percentages in safe seats (the NDP are not getting 73% of Nickel Belt or 71% of Mushkegowuk—James Bay at 39% provincewide).

[ON Progressive]

Seat projectors are almost useless in this climate.  I'd be more confident in the Liberals winning the Thunder Bay seats than Woodbridge.

Yeah. IIRC, seat projectors did awful in 2011/2015 federally (and those two, just like the polls suggest will happen here, had huge swings)

[ON Progressive]

What are the genuine three-way races in this election?  Not "three way" in the sense that one party is strong enough to play spoiler but that any of the three parties can win.

Don Valley East seems to be the obvious one (the similar provincial riding of Don Mills went NDP with 35% of the vote in 1990).

Maybe Ottawa West-Nepean and Ottawa South?

St. Catharines perhaps?

Guelph could be one.

Yeah, I'd say Guelph is a three-way race. Although it's a Green/NDP/PC three-way race rather than a Liberal/PC/NDP race.

[ON Progressive]

Quito Maggi predicts a Doug majority.

I think a week before the election when the popular vote is this close it’s a bit premature to be so categorical about who will win the a majority. If I were Quito I would save that posting for next Tuesday or Wednesday

I agree. Like Maggi, and unlike most here, I believe that the fundamentals for a PC win are all there, but in an election as volatile as this one, I would wait and be more cautious with predictions such as this.

Besides, I am not convinced that PC would have a majority, even if they finish as the biggest party at Queen's Park.

Yeah, I'd wait until this week is over to be so sure of a PC majority, although it is the most likely result to happen.

[ON Progressive]

Just curious, has baby Trudeau intervened at all on behalf of the Ontario Libs, or do federal politicians generally keep their noses out of provincial campaigns, unlike in the US?

They generally stay out, and it would tank him to campaign with someone as unpopular as Wynne anyway

[ON Progressive]

Anybody know what the turnout was in advanced polls as that might be the first hint.  Also not sure if Hatman can share this, but I believe Frank Graves on twitter was saying their polls included those who said they already voted and the PCs were ahead so wondering what the numbers are like of those who have already voted if this can be shared.

Makes a lot of sense the PCs are ahead in advance polling. Advance polling seems like it would be something older voters are more likely to do than younger voters.

[ON Progressive]

Is there a reason people are refusing to post the results of these famed riding polls on this thread?
This isn't a difficult request; it would be helpful for us without access to see what you are talking about.

Mainstreet revokes subscriptions if you leak results out.

[ON Progressive]

Just for the hell of it I decided to go back and dig up the riding polls that Mainstreet (and others) did in the 2017 BC election to see how accurate they were. The answer - NOT VERY. In almost every single case they overestimated BC Liberal support by a lot and underestimated BC NDP support. I know that BC is not Ontario and that Ontario ridings are larger etc... but I think its still worth looking at

Saanich North
BC Liberals 40% (they got 27%)
NDP           25% (they got 30%)
Green        35% (they got 42%)

Fraser Nicola
BC Liberals 54% (they got 42%)
NDP           26% (they got 38%)
Green        20% (they got 16%)

Delta North
BC Liberals 41% (they got 40%)
NDP           39% (they got 48%)
Green        20% (they got 11%)

Surrey-Fleetwood
BC Liberals 48% (they got 36%)
NDP           39% (they got 53%)
Green        13% (they got 11%)

Another company - Oracle did a bunch of riding polls on Vancouver Island. Same pattern, almost all were dead wrong and again they generally overestimated the BC Liberals and underestimated the NDP and in these cases the Greens

Courtenay-Comox
BC Liberals   44% (they got 37%)
NDP             29% (they got 37%)
Green          27% (they got 18%)

Saanich North and The Islands
NDP             34% (they got 30%)
BC Liberal    34% (they got 27%)
Green          32% (they got 42%)

Esquimalt-Metchosin
NDP            40% (they got 46%)
BC Liberals  32% (they got 28%)
Green         28% (they got 25%)

Cowichan Valley
BC Liberals  37% (they got 28%)
NDP            35% (they got 31%)
Green         24% (they got 37%)
 

Great post. I was hoping to find those BC riding polls when I mentioned them earlier in the thread.

[ON Progressive]

New poll from a company I've never heard of, based on 603 decided voters.

https://researchco.ca/2018/06/01/ontario-2018/

NDP 39%
PC 38%
Lib 18%
Grn 4%

I don't know about you, but 603 seems like a really, really small sample size.

[ON Progressive]

certain companies this time are using them as a money making scam. Beware.

That's ridiculous.

There's no way Mainstreet is making money off of this. Polling firms do not make money doing election polling. It's all about publicity, and Mainstreet is not too far off from losing their entire credibility. So, they have a lot to lose with junky polls. (that's not to say they aren't going to be junky).

I agree. Riding polls are junk usually (for reasons out of Mainstreet's control, honestly), but I don't think Mainstreet is trying to scam people. I highly doubt there are enough people buying subscriptions for them to make money off these polls.

Polling is expensive, and the only people who would buy money for them are people like us who pay attention to this stuff a lot. That's a very small market, and not enough to make money off of.

[ON Progressive]

certain companies this time are using them as a money making scam. Beware.

That's ridiculous.

There's no way Mainstreet is making money off of this. Polling firms do not make money doing election polling. It's all about publicity, and Mainstreet is not too far off from losing their entire credibility. So, they have a lot to lose with junky polls. (that's not to say they aren't going to be junky).

Do you think Mainstreet is on probation for their huge Calgary screw-up?

Yes, not to mention the aforementioned BC riding polls and some of the other by-election riding polls they've done.

But back to the costs of such a thing, let's be generous and say there are 1000 subscribers. That's $30K. That's nowhere close to the amount that it would cost to collect as many cases as they have in all of those ridings.

I honestly don't think Mainstreet should be blamed all that much for those bad riding polls though. I've yet to see anybody do reasonably accurate riding polling in any country. Maybe US House polls, but US CDs are far larger in population and geographic size than Canadian or British ridings so it's not a fair comparison.

[ON Progressive]

I really, really doubt Ford loses in Etobicoke North.

First of all, this model does not take into account at all Ford's personal popularity in north Etobicoke.  Second, these seat projection models are kinda useless right now (yes, more useless than Mainstreet's riding polls!)

Yeah. I can't see Ford losing his own riding unless his party somehow goes down to 2014 levels. Even then, Ford would likely overperform the party as a whole because he is party leader in an area that adores the Fords.

[ON Progressive]

[ON Progressive]

YUGE: Wynne is preemptively conceding today and asking Ontarians to elect enough Grits to force a minority government.

This will just make sure there are zero Liberals at Queen’s Park

[ON Progressive]

Contrary to others, I actually think it will strengthen the Liberal vote in places like Ottawa Centre, Spadina Ft. York, Willowdale, Eglinton Lawrence and even places like Beaches East York. Will it be enough? Who knows.

...how?

Look, most voters don't know who placed where in their riding last time round. Admitting her party's electoral irrelevance opens the Liberals up to the same nightmarish logic that saw the NDP further pulverised in 1999...

Yeah, people aren't going to vote for a party they are sure is going to lose the election.

[ON Progressive]

Final Abacus poll is out and shows no change at all from last week

NDP 37%
PCs 33%
OLP 23%

But they also find that when given a binary choice 60% prefer a Horwath NDP government vs 40% who prefer a Ford PC government and among Liberal voters that ratio rises to 80/20

Draw your own conclusions about how Wynne’s concession affects things

Very interesting stuff. The early vote is surprisingly strong for the Liberals too (34 PC, 30 NDP, 27 Liberal)

[ON Progressive]

Final Abacus poll is out and shows no change at all from last week

NDP 37%
PCs 33%
OLP 23%

But they also find that when given a binary choice 60% prefer a Horwath NDP government vs 40% who prefer a Ford PC government and among Liberal voters that ratio rises to 80/20

Draw your own conclusions about how Wynne’s concession affects things

Very interesting stuff. The early vote is surprisingly strong for the Liberals too (34 PC, 30 NDP, 27 Liberal)

Ugh. How many of those Liberal voters would've switched to the NDP had they not voted ahead of time? There was a lot of this in the 2011 federal election. Costed the NDP at least one seat in Quebec (Westmount) from what I recall.

One of the many reasons I would prefer people not vote ahead of time.

Part of me thinks this was because these folks are diehard Liberals who weren’t going to switch.

I know I voted early because I knew I wasn’t going to switch anyway, and just wanted to get it out of the way.

[ON Progressive]

Pollara

PC 37% (+5)
NDP 37% (-6)
Liberal 20% (+3)
Green 5% (-)
Other 1% (-1)

https://www.pollara.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Pollara_ONElxn2018-MethoDataBrf_May30-Jun2.pdf

I don't really know if this should be compared to their other polls. Their methedology has completely changed. It was all online last poll, and is a mixture of phone/online in this poll (1080 phone calls, 367 online surveys).