Predict the 43rd Canadian federal election, 2019

[King of Kensington]

Why do you think the NDP will be routed in BC?  Is this based on the assumption that the Horgan government will be massively unpopular by then?

[King of Kensington]

Bernier would have been a disaster as leader. He doesn't seem to understand that he would need more than libertarianism people to win an election. He'd alienate all the blue collar Tories  and wouldn't win over the Blue Liberals he'd need to make up for it because they aren't fond of libertarianism either.

Bingo.

[King of Kensington]

1. Simplistically, they are LPC-CPC swing voters who lean towards the LPC, on average

2. They are fiscally conservative, but not to an orthodox extent. For example, supporting lowered taxes as a principle, but only if the budget is already balanced (while some Conservatives constantly call for lowered taxes even if the budget is unbalanced, like Doug Ford in the recent Ontario campaign).

3. They are economically liberal, in the sense that they generally reject (what they see as) government overregulation of business, and support policies like free trade. This is one of the big reasons why they are unlikely to vote NDP.

4. They are socially progressive, and believe in the positive role of government in addressing social issues.

Obviously #2 didn't apply to many who could be categorize as "blue Liberals" in the most recent Ontario election. 

[King of Kensington]

"Blue Liberal" is an umbrella term for those on the right-wing of the Liberal Party - people who would vote Conservative before they would vote NDP.  But the reasons for their defection aren't always the same. 

Obviously they're not going to vote for Conservatives who offer nothing but "movement conservatism" - such as Bernier-style libertarianism and Hudak-style hyper-austerity.

But their views on economics and social policy vary.  Some are Liberals just because of family tradition - and they don't necessarily have coherent or united views on social issues, trade, deficits etc. - but lean more right than left overall.  Then there are what I suppose can be called "Paul Martin Liberals" with a more coherent political philosophy: socially liberal, pro-free trade, believe in government spending within a framework of "competitiveness" etc.

[King of Kensington]

Liberals will be re-elected.  Either with a very large minority or the tiniest of majorities.

[King of Kensington]

I don't see the Conservatives losing seats in Ontario.  They were pretty much reduced to their core vote and stoking fears about immigration and railing against the carbon tax won't hurt them in the ridings they hold.

BC seems to be trending away from the Conservatives more than Ontario is - but they were reduced to pretty little already last time in seats.

[King of Kensington]

I really don't see the rural Ontario seats flipping to the Liberals.  If they couldn't take them during the height of the red wave, I don't see them taking them next time.  

In Harper's first time out leading the newly merged Conservative Party - where the attempt to put on a more moderate face failed time out - the Tories got 24 out of 106 seats in Ontario.  I really don't see them going below that in a worst case scenario.

[King of Kensington]

Two areas to watch in terms of Liberal vulnerability in Ontario:

York Region:  These weren't blowouts like in Peel and Ajax/Pickering; it was mostly narrow Liberal victories and the Conservatives got more than 40% of the vote virtually everywhere.  The PCs under Ford got over 50% of the vote in York Region.  It seems to have emerged as the most Conservative of the GTA suburban regions; even a pretty xenophobic Tory campaign in 2015 didn't take them out of contention.  Of course Scheer doesn't have the "hometown advantage" here that Ford sort of did (most of the money for the Fords municipal campaigns came from Vaughan).

The Bay of Quinte area:   More "liberal" than Eastern Ontario east of Kingston, the Liberals narrowly won Northumberland and Hastings-L&A and won Bay of Quinte by a surprisingly big margin.  But these could fall back to the Tories with just a slight wearing off of the 2015 red wave.

[King of Kensington]

For NDP pickups in Ontario, here are their best and most likely targets.

Davenport
Parkdale-High Park
Toronto-Danforth
Beaches-East York
Oshawa
Brampton East
Hamilton East-Stoney Creek
Niagara Centre
Nickel Belt
Kenora (only if Howard Hampton runs again, otherwise stays Liberal)
Ottawa Centre

Agree with most of this list.  In Toronto there are 3 seats where the NDP has a more solid voting base and gets around 40% even in bad times: Parkdale-High Park, Davenport and Toronto-Danforth.  Beaches-East York is more "swingy" like Spadina-Fort York.

[King of Kensington]

I don't see Adam Vaughan losing.  All I meant is I don't think they have much hope in Beaches-East York either.

[King of Kensington]

What happens with the First Nations reserve vote?  In the last election there was an extraordinary rise in turnout because of a strong get out the vote effort and Trudeau talking seriously about reconciliation.  It very likely contributed to the Conservatives falling from first to third in Kenora for example.

In the left-wing "echo chamber" I often find myself in, the line is that Trudeau has massively disappointed FN people.  But I don't know what the real sentiment on the ground is.

[King of Kensington]

Some random thoughts:

The Conservatives should get over 50% in Saskatchewan

BC will be the NDP's best province

The Conservative vote % will be higher in Ontario than BC