Canadian provincial leadership elections 2015

[Boston Bread]

So, who you all rooting for?

Oswald. Moreso anybody but Selinger. Anything to reduce the chance of a PC government.

[Boston Bread]

Most Oswald supporters should go to Ashton on the second ballot as an anti-Selinger move, am I correct? If so Selinger should be done for even if he gets a plurality of delegates.

[Boston Bread]

Does Selinger look favoured to win a runoff?

[Boston Bread]

Selinger is probably finished, he may not make the 2nd ballot.

I'd be happy with Oswald or Ashton.

[Boston Bread]

So PCPO isn't a coronation anymore? I can't believe Brown has a shot, and I'm saying that as someone who has lived in his riding. A random backbencher with no accomplishments I can think of and is a blue Tory when PC's should be looking to moderate. At least if he wins the PC's will have less of a chance in 2018.

[Boston Bread]

Firefighters union (only 15 delegates) are now supporting Oswald

Firefighters union changed to supporting Selinger.

[Boston Bread]

Dang, hard to believe the unions are so eager to drag down their party's electoral prospects.

[Boston Bread]

You'd think all of the Simcoe ridings would be purple.

Brown isn't well known enough outside Barrie. It doesn't surprise me that he isn't having a favourite son affect in the rural Simcoe ridings. He is focusing instead on GTA/immigrant groups because he knows that's a huge untapped reservoir for the PCs.

Elliott isn't a bad fit for the region, either. Simcoe is ancestrally Tory, but at the same time it's less so-con than the other Tory bastions in the Southwest and East. Look at how Simcoe swung towards Wynne in 2014.

[Boston Bread]

lol MacLeod.

How fitting.

[Boston Bread]

If forum is any indication, Ontario's party support levels are going back to pre-2014 levels.
http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/255/liberal-voters-moving-to-ndp-parties-tied
34% PC
29% LIB
27% NDP
8% GRN

Elliott is, not surprisingly, the most electable. With her as leader, the PCs get 36%.
Brown as leader gets only 30%.
McNaughton fares the worst as expected, at 29%, tied with the NDP.

[Boston Bread]

ONPC results are coming in. Elliott's early lead has been lost. GTA seems to be putting Brown narrowly on top.

Edit: Brown is now winning a lot of seats outside the GTA. Seats in Ottawa, Northern Ontario, which I expected to go to Elliott. I think he's going to win.

[Boston Bread]

Although in Brown's case, head to head polling with the Liberals actually shows him performing as much as 6 points worse than Elliott. One even shows Brown doing worse than Hudak (30%) although the Liberals have likely become less popular since that poll. All while the average Ontarian knows next to nothing about Elliott or Brown.

The next question is: who will resign their seat? Barrie is still held by the Liberals. Hoping the by-election will be as exciting as the Sudbury one was.

[Boston Bread]

I'll have to say, it's an impressive come from behind win. Albeit one that will hurt more than help the PC's.

[Boston Bread]

Interesting that PCs in more conservative seats voted for the less conservative Elliott. Must be the MPP endorsements since no PC MPPs were elected in places like Toronto, Ottawa  and the North.

[Boston Bread]

Elliott surrendering her seat would risk a repeat of John Tory's 2009 run. Her personal popularity was the only thing that stopped the riding from falling in 2014, and Brown is evidently not the most popular there. One of the Simcoe seats would be the safest option since Brown could claim to have some connection with the people there.

[Boston Bread]

OLP at 24%... that's the lowest I've seen for Liberals in Ontario. Worse than Ignatieff even!
I see Brown is giving his party a negative leader bump. It's worse than I thought.

[Boston Bread]

More evidence that this isn't a Patrick Brown effect: PC vote is steady, while Liberal vote is bleeding into the NDP.

Yes, but Brown is part of the reason why Liberals are bleeding NDP rather than to the PC. I think if Elliott won, then the PC's would look more appealing/less scary than the NDP to moderate Liberals.

It also seems to confirm our notion that Horwath's base is less socially liberal than Wynne's.

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There are a lot of don't knows but that is a non-insignificant number of Dippers who are creationists and anti-sex ed (although it might be just reflexively opposing whatever Wynne does).

[Boston Bread]

That's crazy that an election result in another province across the country would cause such a swing in Ontario. Canadian politics are really bizarre sometimes.

It's the bandwagon effect. FPTP punishes vote-splitting, so when one progressive party appears to rise, strategic progressive voters rush to that party.

[Boston Bread]

It should eventually be interesting to see whether the center-left PQers and unions which usually support them stick PQ him or move to QS, which is already at the teens in some polls.
I personally hope for a four way race next time.

[Boston Bread]

Yet another poll suggests no bump for Brown:

Ipsos-Reid says:
34% Liberal
32% PC
25% NDP

http://globalnews.ca/news/2010547/liberals-losing-ground-in-ontario-but-still-in-lead-exclusive-global-poll/

It looks like there won't be any end to contradictory polling in Ontario, even as likely voter models are tossed out. Sad to see so many still support Wynne, though.