Ontario Election 2022

[DL]

The Mainstreet daily tracking has the NDP pulling ahead of the OLP for the first time on popular vote and up 33-13 in seats!

[DL]

The latest Leger poll has the very familiar PC 38%, OLP 26% and NDP 24%

But i was really struck by the question about 2nd choice support. The poll says Liberal support is the softest and that over 60% of OLP voters have the NDP as their second choice. In contrast Ontario NDP support is quite solid and surprisingly few NDP voters have the Liberals as their second choice. More have the Greens as second

https://leger360.com/voting-intentions/provincial-politics-in-ontario-may-25-2022/

[DL]

If the OLP can't get past 30% they won't even make Official Opposition even if they get more votes than the ONDP.

OLP vote unlike NDP is very spread out which is good when ahead thus as we saw federally, can win vast majority of seats with only a relatively modest lead.  But bad when behind as means fewer areas of concentration.  NDP vote much more concentrated thus can get several seats even in a bad election, but means if get competitive overall, have trouble translating into seats as just run up margins in areas already winning while not enough to flip areas they need to.

Very true. Look at what happened in Ontario in the 2011 federal election. the Tories under Harper swept the province with 44% of the vote but the NDP and Liberals were tied with 25% each - and that yielded 22 NDP seats and just 11 Liberals seats. The challenge for the Liberals is that to get into the "payout zone" in seats they have to do well enough in Peel and York regions to win back a ton of Tory seats and so far they show no signs of doing that. I suspect the Liberals will also have a turnout challenge since Liberals tend to go out and vote when they are either enthusiastic or scared - and in this election they are neither of those things.  

[DL]

I've been wondering: what happens in the event that two parties tie for second place? For example, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Liberals and NDP both tied at 20 seats in this election. Who becomes official opposition? Do we have any precedent for this in Canada?

Actually there is a precedent for this. I think it happened in Saskatchewan in the 70s when the Liberals and PCs were tied. If I'm not mistaken the party that is the incumbent official opposition retains the title! But i could be wrong

[DL]

Del Duca is narrowly behind in Vaughan-Woodbridge according to a Mainstreet riding poll:

https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/05/26/riding-poll-del-duca-behind-in-vaughan-woodbridge/

I suspect both the NDP and to a lesser extent the PCs secretly want Del Duca to win his seat - that way he stays as Liberal leader and continues to be a total turn-off to voters. If he loses - there is a chance the OLP might pick a new leader who is less repulsive

[DL]

I've been wondering: what happens in the event that two parties tie for second place? For example, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Liberals and NDP both tied at 20 seats in this election. Who becomes official opposition? Do we have any precedent for this in Canada?

Actually there is a precedent for this. I think it happened in Saskatchewan in the 70s when the Liberals and PCs were tied. If I'm not mistaken the party that is the incumbent official opposition retains the title! But i could be wrong

There's a precedent in Alberta from 2014, when Danielle Smith led most of the Wildrose caucus across the floor to the PCs. 5 Wildrose MLAs refused to cross the floor, and the Liberals (who also had a caucus of 5) challenged them for the Official Opposition title. The Speaker ruled that the Wildrose would stay as Official Opposition as they were the incumbents.

Its a bit of a different situation when you have a tie as a result of floor crossing mid-session as opposed to a tie in seats from an election

[DL]

In determining which party should be the official opposition the share of the popular vote is totally irrelevant

[DL]

When was there ever a tie in Quebec as to which party would be the official opposition?

If there actually was a tie in seats I wonder if there is any precedence for having co-opposition parties?

[DL]

When was there ever a tie in Quebec as to which party would be the official opposition?

If there actually was a tie in seats I wonder if there is any precedence for having co-opposition parties?

In 2018, Quebec solidaire and Parti Quebecois were tied and as a result, the Speaker ruled that the Parti Quebecois would be the second opposition because they had a larger share of the popular vote.

Since when does it mean anything to be "second opposition party" as far as I know you can either be government or official opposition or be an other official party. I don't think parties get any extra status or funding based on being #3 instead of #4

[DL]

New Mainstreet riding poll has Beaches--East York as a statistical tie between the Liberals and...PCs??? All three major parties in the high 20s, but normally you wouldn't even see the PCs crossing 20 in this riding. My guess is it's an outlier, riding polls aren't known to be great in Canada. But if accurate, that's a very surprising one. Beaches--East York is pretty left-wing, and not a "Ford Nation" riding either.

Its almost impossible to conduct riding polls in urban ridings nowadays because most people have cell phones and there is no way to get cell phones linked to what riding people live in - and Mainstreet has a history of really blowing it on riding polls in Toronto. In the last federal election they did a poll of Davenport and week before the election that said the Liberals had a 30 point lead and that the NDP was barely ahead of the Tories. When the votes were counted the Liberals beat the NDP by only 65 votes and the Tories were in single digits!

In the 2018 provincial election Mainstreet did a riding poll in my own riding of University-Rosedale that pointed to a three-way dead heat. When the votes were counted the NDP won easily with almost 50% of the vote and the PC candidate was a distant third. The only possible explanation is that they only surveyed people in "Rosedale" and forgot to poll anyone in "University"!

[DL]

Yes but keep in mind that it was Layton who led the NDP to OO status and the Mulcair who blew it. In contrast it was Horwath who let the NDP to a great result in 2018

[DL]

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}

[DL]

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!

[DL]

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?

[DL]

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

[DL]

The Ontario Liberals could conceivably win in Davenport if “Del Duca-mania” was sweeping the province and Liberal support surged to the high 30s and it looked like Ford could actually be defeated. But so far Del Duca has been a total flop and a turnoff to voters and it looks like the Liberals will just get a modest dead cat bounce from what happened to them in 2018 and it will be the second worst election result they have ever had. Everyone is resigned to the fact that Ford will win again so people are not motivated to vote “strategically “

[DL]

So let me get this straight just about every single NDP premier in Canadian History is described by some as “really a Liberal” but then I have also see. People say Kathleen Wynne was “Ontario’s first NDP Premier” and Justin Trudeau Is often described as “Canadas first NDP prime minister”. I’m confused

[DL]

I’m not sure that Jagmeet Singh actually is personally more leftwing than is John Horgan or Rachel Notley. He just has to operate in a different political context. He has to create a space for the NDP that is distinct from the governing Trudeau Liberals so he has to present himself a more leftwing. Horgan and Notley operate in provinces with a totally polarized two party system and they don’t have to deal with the pesky nuisance of a Liberal party. If the federal NDP surged ahead of the Liberals and became the dominant non-rightwing party in Canada you would likely see Singh move to the centre left very quickly and try to occupy the space vacated by the Liberals. Mulcair tried to do that in 2015 but it was very poorly executed

[DL]

The Final Legar is brutal, PC's at 40% with NDP, would be an absoulte wipeout if that actualy happend.

The final Leger has the PCs at 40%, OLP at 25% and NDP at 24%...if that actually happened the Liberals would be stuck in the low teens in seats and the NDP would definitely still be official opposition

[DL]

According to the final it seems like the PCs have been gaining and the Liberals have been trending down in the homestretch and the NDP trending up just a tad.

Final poll by Ipsos says its PC 40, NDP 25, Libs 24.
Nanos says its PC 38, Libs 26, NDP 25.
Mainstreet has it PC 35, Libs 26, NDP 24
Leger has it PC 40 Libs 25 and NDP 24
Frank Graves of Ekos has tweeted that he also has the PCs way ahead with the NDP and Liberals deadlocked at 25% each.

The NDP vote tends to be much more efficient than the Liberal vote (e.g. in the 2011 federal election when Harper won big the NDP and Liberals each took 25% in Ontario but that gave the NDP 22 seats and the Liberals just 11.

[DL]

My prediction is as follows:

PC - 82 (+6), 38% (-3)
NDP - 26 (-14), 24% (-10)
Lib - 15 (+8), 25% (+6)
GP - 1 (-), 7% (+2)

[DL]

Forum’s seat projection model is totally nuts they say the Liberals will win just 6 seats!

[DL]

As for the ONDP, I've already expressed my issues about them. I'll just add that it's no wonder that the working-class is allying itself with the PCs over the party that was literally founded to stand up for the working-class when said party seemingly does nothing these days but pander to urban progressives. The ONDP putting a hard day's work into figuring out how to jive with the working-class again would go a long way toward potential successes in the future, but I digress about the present.

Actual the self-styled "urban progressives" in Toronto all complain to no end about how the ONDP under Horwath is too populist and too busy trying to chase working class blue collar blue/orange swing voters. They have never been comfortable with Andrea Horwath because she is a bit too "common" and doesn't talk like a member of a think tank.

If you look at what the NDP has been pushing for this election, I'm not sure what exactly there is for a "working class person" to object to. What's wrong with pharmacare? What's wrong with free dental care? What's wrong with a $20/hour minimum wage? What about 10 sick days per year guaranteed? What about doubling ODSP payments to be above the poverty line? What about the NDP promise to roll back gasoline prices? What about promises to make it easier for people to unionize and to give gig workers more rights...just to name a few. If these measures are somehow all a turn off to so-called "working class voters" - then what do they want that the NDP is not offering? Are you suggesting that the NDP needs to chat ":make the rich pay" and "workers of the world unite" and mimic the Linke Party in Germany???

Personally, I have never been crazy about Horwath as a leader largely because I find she tends to sound like a bit of wind up toy and to be a bit trite and simplistic...but I think she actually "gets it" and has tried to target working class voters in the SW of Ontario much more than many intellectual party grandees would have liked. So I just don't think this is fair criticism of her or of the party.

That being said, I think she has had her turn as leader and its time for a new face.

[DL]

What happens in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek? 

Without setting anything in stone, I'll say this: it's a case where the NDP have the lowest-profile candidate of the "big three" + Miller, so they'd *really* require the raw legacy momentum of party machinery to put them over the top--and I tend to agree that the dynamics (both blue-collar and Stoney Creek ethnoburban) are rather Tory-favourable, and that the 3rd place federally last year should have sent the ONDP a message, whatever the "Horwathland" advantage.  (And another open NDP seat worth monitoring on such lowest-political-profile-candidate-of-the-three grounds is Windsor-Tecumseh.)

In both Hamilton East-Stony Creek and Windsor-Tecumseh - the NDP is running young racialized candidates. Is it your view that anyone young and racialized is ipso-facto "low profile" and "weak". To be a strong candiadte, does one have to be a middle white guy who screams and yells a lot?

[DL]

The biggest losers of the night:

Riding polls by Mainstreet and Forum. Many were wildly off
Polly sh**t the bed