Ontario 2018 election

[King of Kensington]

I think the NDP is banking on the Andrea the "real" populist prevailing over Doug the "fake" populist in every single rust belt-ish seat in the province.

[King of Kensington]

Game changer!

https://twitter.com/OntarioPCParty/status/1000439982430085121

[King of Kensington]

Well this is a surprise - if trade unionists like Romano that could certainly help him get re-elected:

https://www.sootoday.com/local-news/surprise-pc-endorsement-shows-union-members-need-to-be-wooed-says-local-2251-prez-934848

[King of Kensington]

Unlike Hudak, AFAIK Ford hasn't attacked unions and collective bargaining in this election.  Obviously he wants to win back all those working class Conservative voters Hudak lost in 2014 (he also snuck into the labour day parade in Toronto last year).

[King of Kensington]

So Mainstreet is supposed to be releasing some riding poll results this afternoon...

[King of Kensington]

I decided to subscribe.

The NDP is cleaning up in Toronto Centre and is surprisingly close to the Liberals in St. Paul's.

Scarborough SW is a bit discouraging from a progressive point of view and suggests that the PCs will win most of Scarborough.

St. Catharines is also encouraging for the NDP.

Sarnia-Lambton suggests that the NDP can't count on "owning" the rust belt vote and that Ford does have a populist appeal there.

The Ottawa numbers are really surprising.

[King of Kensington]

Kathleen Wynne has a narrow lead in DVW.

[King of Kensington]

If the NDP moves up any more in Toronto, then Kathleen Wynne might end up being the last Liberal MPP at all (though I do suspect at least one of the Thunder Bay MPPs will hang on).

So a good likelihood the remaining Liberals are all 60+.

[King of Kensington]

I don't dispute that. But without an actual poll, I still think that Naqvi's local stature and fighting spirit may win the day. We'll see.

Paul Dewar was very personally popular in Ottawa Centre too, and that didn't save him.

[King of Kensington]

I think KW did pretty well considering the circumstances, maybe that'll stop the bleeding.

[King of Kensington]

Horwath did reasonably well (but tapered off a bit) but I don't she got that final knockdown of the Liberals that would send them spiralling into Manitoba Liberal territory or anything.

[King of Kensington]

Maybe KW's opposition to "ideology" will help her with the "John Tory Liberal" constituency.

[King of Kensington]

Re: the riding polls, I find the Ottawa ones very surprising.  Hard to believe the NDP is polling around 30% in Ottawa South and Ottawa West-Nepean - they strike me as being more or less equivalent to Willowdale or the Don Valley in Toronto.

[King of Kensington]

On the pre-election discussion on CBC tonight, Brad Lavigne stated that Andrea Horwath is not only taking votes from Liberals but "traditional Tories."  Rosie Barton asked Eric Grenier whether he thought this was true.  He said he thinks that she's pulling from the parked PC/anti-Liberal vote but it wasn't clear that she was actually poaching away from reliably Conservative voters.

[King of Kensington]

Mainstreet will be releasing 7 more riding polls today including the other Don Valley seats and some in Brampton.

[King of Kensington]

We will likely see SW ON and Northern ON assume that pattern (PC:NDP), except in the major urban centers.  But there is no way that Toronto, good chunks of 905 (central ON, York region, Peel) and Eastern ON abandon the Liberals completely, in favor of NDP.  Unlike in the west, where the NDP is seen as an ally of the common man, many parts of ON still see NDP as the ideological left wing socialist party, that they want no part of.  That may change but not overnight. 

It's not always easy to compare Ontario and the West, but I'm not so sure if the NDP constituencies are that different - even if the NDP is stronger traditionally in the West.  The party has strength in communities with a history of industrial trade unionism.  They also traditionally do well in major cities.  

But compared to say BC, yeah, the number of NDP dead zones is bigger in Ontario.  Van's suburbs have traditionally been more favorable - it doesn't really have the equivalent of York Region.  Van suburbs for the most part are more like Peel/Durham.

[King of Kensington]

The Liberal recovery in Toronto is interesting to note (but how much of that would be "wasted votes"?)

[King of Kensington]

The big difference stems from history, and actually explains the "dead zones". The Cooperative Commonwealth Foundation (CCF) started up as a defender of farmers and rural folk (copyright by Doug Ford ) in the west. As a result, it's heir, the NDP, is favorably perceived both in cities and in smaller communities. That was NOT the case in Ontario. Most of the rural constituencies in Eastern ON have not been friendly to the NDP, and in turn the NDP has not made an attempt to penetrate them. That is why I laugh when I hear talk about NDP winning rural or suburban seats in the East or in central Ontario. The NDP are simply not there and when people on the forum wish for Liberals to collapse in many ridings, they are pretty much rooting for Doug Ford.

The "agrarian socialism" of Saskatchewan wheat farmers was kind of a unique historic phenomenon (and that's been on the decline for decades, not sure it can be said to exist at all anymore).  Rural areas in most of the Western world mostly vote for the right, including in Western Canada (except those with an "industrial" nature or a very large FN population).  Also the CCF was far more "ideological" than the modern NDP, so I don't think this is really a relevant comparison.  

[King of Kensington]

Can someone provide these riding polls?

They're encouraging if you're a Conservative.

PCs leading in the DVE and DVN, blowout in Mississauga-Lakeshore.

Even Brampton only looks OK from an NDP point of view.  West and North they're neck in neck with the PCs, South PCs are leading.

The NDP is well ahead in Kingston - but that was never going PC anyway.

[King of Kensington]

Didn't even see Eg-Law...wow.  Confirms my suspicion that Ford polls worse there than a more generic Tory but if the NDP is doing that well the PCs could slip through.

[King of Kensington]

It looks like the Liberals will be reduced to some "John Tory Liberal" seats, a seat or two in Ottawa and Thunder Bay.  

[King of Kensington]

Steven Del Duca is one of the most overrated politicians around in my opinion.  He strikes me more as someone who just got lucky, not a respected Sorbara/Bevilacqua type figure.  

[King of Kensington]

OK what isn't happening (unless things change dramatically) is the Rae '90 SW Ontario near-sweep.  The NDP is driving the Liberals out of the cities but will have a much harder time defeating PC MPPs.

[King of Kensington]

The way that man speaks, in the holier than thou attitude really turns people off from politics.  Speaks down to people who don't agree with him.  Can't stand that man. 

Del Duca may be a "public face" of the Liberals in the GTA, but that works both ways!

[King of Kensington]

Del Duca has so far shown no special abilities, but he is also a potential future Liberal leader AND an Italian-Canadian in a heavily ethnic Italian riding. Because of tthat, short of a total romp by the PC or a total Liberal collapse (neither of which look likely), Del Duca will imho get reelected.

Why does being "an ethnic Italian" give him any special advantage?  When is the last time the Liberals or the Conservatives federally or provincially did not run an Italian Canadian candidate in Woodbridge (or previous riding configurations)?

Also, Ford is popular among Italians in the GTA.