Ontario Election 2022

[King of Kensington]

The best shot the "anti-mandate" crowd has is Rick Nichols in Chatham, where he has incumbency and it was the best result for the PPC in Ontario. That riding is about as "Trumpy" as Ontario gets (rust belt-ish and Bible belt-ish).

[King of Kensington]

Its still early in the campaign but at this stage my sense is that there really isn't much of a mood for change and that the Ford PCs will win again and possibly even add to their majority. Its going to turn into mainly a battle for second place. The conventional wisdom was that one of the opposition parties would break away and consolidate the "anti-Ford vote". I'm not even sure about that. If the consensus is that the PCs are going to win no matter that creates a very different mindset among "promiscuous progressives" - more like the federal election of 2008 than 2015.

I suspect that the OLP will have somewhat of a deadcat bounce from their annihilation in 2018, but they may gain surprisingly few seats...and if the PCs are doing well in the 'burbs I think it would be an upset if Del Duca even won his own seat. The Liberals may edge out the NDP in the popular vote but the Liberal vote is very very inefficient at low levels (e.g. in the 2011 federal election the Liberals and NDP were essentially tied in the popular vote and the NDP beat the Liberals 22 seats to 11). So I think the NDP will suffer losses but still be the official opposition.

In the aftermath of the election, there will be leadership questions for the opposition parties, I don't think anyone thinks Horwath will stick around as ONDP leader and her heir apparent would be Davenport MPP Marit Stiles (who IMHO would be much, much better). For the OLP it will be more complicated. They are certain to increase their vote and seat count compared to 2018 so in a way Del Duca will be in the same position as Horwath after her first election in 2011 when she took the NDP from 10 seats to 17. I suppose a lot of depends on whether he wins his seat. If he manages to win in Vaughan-Woodbridge and the OLP gains a dozen seats, I suspect he would try to stay on. If he loses his seat and the OLP is still in 3rd place - all bets are off and his fate is more unpredictable.   

I agree for the most part.  There is no desire for change and the opposition vote will not necessarily coalesce so easily.  And Ford does well among GTA federal Liberal voters, which could prove fatal to the OLP.  The PC vote will likely prove very efficient in the GTA, giving them most of Scarborough, Mississauga, Brampton etc.  And yes, Del Duca winning Woodbridge is by no means a slam dunk.

[King of Kensington]

Outside PHP/Davenport/Danforth what is the NDP's best prospect of holding on in Toronto?  I'm guessing Toronto Centre with KWT's candidacy.  Dianne Sachs in University-Rosedale probably pulls equally from NDP and Liberal voters, so her candidacy doesn't "cost" either party the seat.  In Spadina-Fort York, I don't think Vuong will have much of an impact. 

Meanwhile it seems like Beaches-East York, St. Paul's, YSW and Humber are gone.

Scarborough Southwest is perhaps the most interesting.  As I said before, Doly Begum's win was quite decisive, it wasn't an "come up the middle" victory like YSW and Humber.  Does Duverger's Law work in her favor there? 

[King of Kensington]

The NDP fall, Tory rise & Liberal hold has been going on for a few months now (https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=453425.msg8585858#msg8585858); as you say, most people probably aren't switching directly from NDP to PC (though a few blue-collar populist types who for some reason didn't hop over to Ford last time may be doing so now) but the net effect is an interesting one.

Wayne Gates likely has enough personal popularity in Niagara Falls to hang on.  But yeah, St. Catharines, Niagara Centre, Essex and Oshawa are likely to fall to the PCs.

[King of Kensington]

Port Arthur from what was from I understand was the more "Finnish" part as well as the of the Lakehead, and a bit more affluent and older.  Fort William more frontierish, and more Italian and Ukrainian.

[King of Kensington]

The PCs took OWN with less than 1/3 of the vote in an almost perfect three-way split.  Had the NDP taken it would be the choice of the "liberal minded."  Now it may flip back to the Liberals since they weren't far behind.

[King of Kensington]

Kanata/Barrhaven = NOVA, OWN and Ottawa South = Silver Spring.

[King of Kensington]

Incidentally Scarborough SW is safer for the NDP than its whiter, more Brahmin-y neighbor of Beaches-East York given that Doly Begum has incumbency, while B-EY is an open seat and MMM has the most name recognition.

[King of Kensington]

Speaking of "Brahmin liberalism":

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=493895.0

[King of Kensington]

Not looking good, as that's a seat they can certainly win.

[King of Kensington]

Did a walk of University-Rosedale today on two north-south streets covering the riding just to see the signage in the western end and in the Annex. FWIW I'd say NDP incumbent Jessica Bell has a lead, Dianne Saxe of the Greens was second and the Liberal candidate a decent third (only saw 2 PCs, not surprising).  Not that signs vote. 

[King of Kensington]

Its interesting to note just how inefficient the Liberal vote is in Ontario when its at relatively low levels. The latest topline numbers from the Mainstreet daily tracking has the PCs at 36%, the Liberals dropping to 26.8% and the NDP rising to 24.4% - with the OLP leading the ONDP by 2.4% - they project that with this provincewide split, the NDP would take 26 seats and the OLP would take 13 (with 11 tossups) and the PCs would romp to a majority with 73 seats.

https://twitter.com/elxnometre/status/1525498671772717057?s=21&t=dm5MaUrQyXhXfaEMb72RSw

Let's not forget that in the 2011 federal election in Ontario the NDP took 25.8% and the Liberals took 25.3% - but the NDP took 22 seats and the Liberals just 11.

So the Tories aren't far off when they're gloating about the NDP getting 25 seats and the Liberals 10 seats.

[King of Kensington]

Del Duca is not going to even win Woodbridge, is he?

[King of Kensington]

I wouldn't jump *too* much to conclusions there (after all, who knows who'll be leading the Libs in '26)--however, the OLP should have known going into this election that given the scale of their '18 defeat, recovery *could* be, at least when it comes to seat numbers, not a single-stage process.  And that even their present apparently favourable polling figures are exceptionally soft.  But of course, if they were assuming that they'd be "obviously" roaring back to a clear and obvious Official Opposition status under Del Duca right *now*--as opposed to a more equivocal '75/77-type result, which'd open up those "anti-Ford coalition government" possibilities but, y'know, is a bit more complicated than the Libs having the upper hand...

What'd probably be most dismaying to the Liberal camp is the likelihood of Horwath's relinquishing her leadership *not* being a knives-out-for-her affair; but a rather civil passing of the baton (to Stiles or whomever else)

Well unlike in the 2015 federal election, there is no major desire for change and Del Duca is no Trudeau.

[King of Kensington]

Del Duca is not going to even win Woodbridge, is he?

All the fundamentals suggest that Woodbridge should be a pretty easy PC hold in this election, except for the major factor that a leader is running there. He did get swept in 2018, but used to get very strong results before (I remember in 2018 people genuinely thought Woodbridge would be competitive). Del Duca's a Woodbridge boy, certainly no parachute candidate, and has represented it before. That said, Woodbridge is also Ford Nation.

Yeah I remember those, saying he'd be among the surviving 7-10 Libs.  Some universal swing models have him competitive because the margin in 2014 was deceptively large.  Or because "Italians are Liberals" (lol).

He didn't even lose in a semi-dignified way, Sousa/Flynn kind of way (Mississauga-Lakeshore and Oakville).  It was a blowout.

[King of Kensington]

Seat projections.  GTA is a real battleground between Ford Nation and traditional Liberal support:

https://twitter.com/EScrimshaw/status/1526252124904034304/photo/1

[King of Kensington]

I can see why Ford wanted to be able to bring notes.

[King of Kensington]

Delivered Layton's line against Ignatieff like Ignatieff.

[King of Kensington]

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

[King of Kensington]

The 1990 map is impossible to replicate today.  The "regions" outside Toronto were less important then (905 area code came into existence in early 1990s), pre-sorting of the electorate on metropolitan/nonmetropolitan lines.

[King of Kensington]

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/

[King of Kensington]

For having worked on that campaign, it's not Mulcair who blew it, but the paid campaign strategists and party employees.

The buck stops at the top.

[King of Kensington]

What happens in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek? 

[King of Kensington]

Or Thunder Bay, no idea what's going on there.

[King of Kensington]

Seat prediction:

PCs  82 seats
NDP  27 seats
Liberals  14 seats
Greens  1 seat