Ontario 2018 election

[Pericles]

Are people more likely to refrain from telling pollsters their true intention if they are backing Doug Ford? I think so and I suspect PCs will do fine.

NOPE.

[Hatman 🍁]

OK I see Guildwood and Agincourt now.  So Mitzie Hunter still has some support.  This is a tough call for the "strategic voter."

Not really. Unlike some other Scarborough ridings, in Guildwood the ABF (anyone but Ford) voter should support the Liberals.

Not necessarily. It's definitely a 3-way race, even if the NDP campaign is non existent.

[PeteB]

OK I see Guildwood and Agincourt now.  So Mitzie Hunter still has some support.  This is a tough call for the "strategic voter."

Not really. Unlike some other Scarborough ridings, in Guildwood the ABF (anyone but Ford) voter should support the Liberals.

Not necessarily. It's definitely a 3-way race, even if the NDP campaign is non existent.

That is my point. Nonexistent NDP campaign+popular Liberal incumbent+plenty of Ford Nation vote implies you vote for the Liberal if you are ABF. Or you can vote NDP and get PC elected.

[Hatman 🍁]

OK I see Guildwood and Agincourt now.  So Mitzie Hunter still has some support.  This is a tough call for the "strategic voter."

Not really. Unlike some other Scarborough ridings, in Guildwood the ABF (anyone but Ford) voter should support the Liberals.

Not necessarily. It's definitely a 3-way race, even if the NDP campaign is non existent.

That is my point. Nonexistent NDP campaign+popular Liberal incumbent+plenty of Ford Nation vote implies you vote for the Liberal if you are ABF. Or you can vote NDP and get PC elected.

The NDP can win ridings it does't have an active campaign in. It happened in Alberta and it happened in Quebec. A lot harder to happen in Ontario, but not impossible.

[King of Kensington]

It would be interesting to know if ther are any seats the OLP are most desperately trying to save (beside KW's focus on being re-elected as the MPP for DVW in which I think she will be successful).
Realistically the numbers they can possibly hang onto is in the single digits.  

The Ottawa-Vanier/St. Paul's/Don Valley/Thunder Bay party.

[King of Kensington]

That is my point. Nonexistent NDP campaign+popular Liberal incumbent+plenty of Ford Nation vote implies you vote for the Liberal if you are ABF. Or you can vote NDP and get PC elected.

I think there's going to almost be a strategic voting mess in some outer Toronto ridings, with the Conservatives slipping through with 35-40% of the vote.  How do you convince thousands of voters to vote one way when it is not at all clear who the main anti-Conservative candidate?  Unless the Toronto Star names specifically who these Liberal MPPs best poised to defeat the Conservative are (and even then). 

What do you do in a 35-30-30 situation?

[King of Kensington]

Looking forward to that Globe endorsement:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-globe-editorial-doug-fords-empty-plan-for-ontario/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

I'm guessing it'll be: Conservative minority, dump Ford and rebuild the Liberals as a more centrist and fiscally conservative alternative to the NDP.

[PeteB]

It would be interesting to know if ther are any seats the OLP are most desperately trying to save (beside KW's focus on being re-elected as the MPP for DVW in which I think she will be successful).
Realistically the numbers they can possibly hang onto is in the single digits.  

The Ottawa-Vanier/St. Paul's/Don Valley/Thunder Bay party.

At BEST, Liberals can take:

1. Toronto St. Paul's
2. Don Valley West
3. Don Valley East
4. Don Valley North
5. Scarborough Guildwood
6. Eglinton Lawrence
7. Toronto Centre
8. University-Rosedale
9. Spadina Ft. York
10. Willowdale
11. Etobicoke Lakeshore
12. Vaughan-Woodbridge
13. Hamilton West Ancaster Dundas
14. Mississauga Centre
15. Mississauga East Cooksville
16. Mississauga Malton
17. St. Catharines
18. Thunder Bay Superior North
19. Thunder Bay Atikokan
20. Ottawa Vanier
21. Ottawa Centre
22. Ottawa Soutth
23. Glengarry Prescott Russell

Out of those I would say in 8 or 9 they stand a very good chance. The other are iffy (like the TB seats) or almost impossible (like HWAD or Etobicoke Lakeshore)

[King of Kensington]

In any race where the Liberals are possibly in contention, it's going to be close, as no Liberal is headed for a landslide victory (in other words, there are no absolutely, truly safe seats for the Liberals right now).  Another party can't be so far ahead, because personal popularity and strategic voting and so on aren't going to make up for all of that.  The Liberals will prevail because at least one party is very weak and/or another under-performs for some reason.  

In addition, some other criteria:

1.  A lot of "too educated to vote Ford, too rich to vote NDP" types (this may prove the most reliable Liberal constituency)

2.  A riding where the Liberal is clearly best positioned to defeat the Conservative or where the Conservatives have no chance

3.  Extraordinary personal popularity or at least enough to tip the vote in a close race.  Personal popularity matters more in rural and northern ridings

4.  Not too vulnerable to the NDP pulling votes from the Liberals en masse

[adma]

Ford is hardly a break for the PCs anyway - Harris led them into three elections and o/c won two. Not everything is about or like Trump...

I don't know about "hardly a break for the PCs"--there's a lot less grotesque pathology underlying Harris (or even Klein in Alberta) than there is underlying the Fords or Trump.

In fact, that's been the eternal insufferably-vocal-Ford-opposition myopia (whether municipal or provincial): when it recycles the same historical leftish tropes used against Harris, Harper, Klein, Dubyah, Thatcher, Reagan, Nixon, etc etc., with little or no regard for the possibility that Doug Ford, like Rob Ford before him, might actually be *worse*.  I mean, they *may* have a point; but more often than not, when "their" side wins, it's more *in spite of* them than anything.

Of course, the same goes for the other end of the spectrum.  If Ford wins, it'll be likewise *in spite of* his web-forum cheering squad chanting "MOGA!" and salivating at the prospect of the, uh, wicked sex ed indoctrination curriculum being abolished...

[adma]

True advanced polls are overused, but I find its mostly people who are diehard anyways and unlikely to change.  It's basically a way to ensure their vote is locked in case something comes up that prevents them from voting.  Also you need it as there are those with travel plans and its important those out of the province or country can vote too.

Though in these days of social media dominance, I find that advance polls have been *especially* overused in the name of being able to tweet or status-update: "I voted".  A sort of electoral ego-trip, as if voting in advance and posting about it were a declaration of *super*-commitment.

I'm old-fashioned.  Even if my electoral intent is set long beforehand, I'd rather vote with the herd on election day.  And, psephologically speaking: that way, my vote counts within my polling station, and on the polling map, rather than disappearing in the amorphous maw of "advance votes".  I'm contributing to the meaningful function of geographic polling data ;-)

[adma]

Burlington is interesting.  I guess not being very Fordian, having a bit of an urban core and closeness to Hamilton = some NDP potential?

Could be.  It's also worth noting that over the past quarter century, Burlington's had both an NDP Mayor and a Green Mayor.  And as I've said: were it not for the PCs' Cam Jackson's "non-Liberal" incumbent advantage, who knows how well the NDP might have done in Burlington in 1990 (they did get a quarter of the vote, anyway)

[adma]

OTOH, there is a tradition of right-of-centre overperformance and NDP underperformance in advance polls.  When NDP overperforms, it's either when the demos most prone to advance voting tend leftward (as in many cultural-class urban ridings) or the campaign momentum shifts dramatically away t/w the end of the campaign (as in 2015 federally).

Though given "Ford populism", it could well be that the PCs are, well, underperforming their usual advance-poll overperformance.

Keep in mind that if it were all about the advance polls, 1990 would have seen something like a 3-way seat split.

Do they skew elderly as e.g. postal votes do in most places?

They skew, I guess, "comfortably well off".  Which'd presumably include a good deal of the nest-egg elderly.

[King of Kensington]

Oakville and Burlington are often lumped together, but Burlington really isn't Oakville-wealthy (and yes I know Oakville has more modest parts too, but on the whole it's very affluent for a city of 180,000 and that affluence "sets the tone" for the place).  

Another way to see it: Burlington is the "mirror image" of Whitby in the western GTA (and Oakville is Oakville - it has no eastern GTA "equivalent").

[PeteB]

Oakville and Burlington are often lumped together, but Burlington really isn't Oakville-wealthy (and yes I know Oakville has more modest parts too, but on the whole it's very affluent for a city of 180,000 and that affluence "sets the tone" for the place).  

Another way to see it: Burlington is the "mirror image" of Whitby in the western GTA, while there's no "Oakville" in the eastern GTA.

And a very practical difference is that the Liberal incumbent in Oakville, Kevin Flynn is fairly popular. But I don't think even that will be enough to prevent PC taking over Oakville.

[King of Kensington]

And a very practical difference is that the Liberal incumbent in Oakville, Kevin Flynn is fairly popular. But I don't think even that will be enough to prevent PC taking over Oakville.

He probably has the least "Fordian" riding in the 905 and he'll probably do respectfully "considering the circumstances" but that won't be enough.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm old-fashioned.  Even if my electoral intent is set long beforehand, I'd rather vote with the herd on election day.  And, psephologically speaking: that way, my vote counts within my polling station, and on the polling map, rather than disappearing in the amorphous maw of "advance votes".  I'm contributing to the meaningful function of geographic polling data ;-)

Now there's something we can all agree on

[King of Kensington]

Don't revoke my subscription - somebody else leaked it!:

https://twitter.com/CoryJudson/status/1003376996926283777

[ON Progressive]

Don't revoke my subscription - somebody else leaked it!:

https://twitter.com/CoryJudson/status/1003376996926283777

Considering the known right wing skew of Mainstreet riding polls, this isn't terrible at all for the NDP.

[DC Al Fine]

Don't revoke my subscription - somebody else leaked it!:

https://twitter.com/CoryJudson/status/1003376996926283777

If the NDP picks up Burlington/Oakville the right/left class swap will be complete.

[PeteB]

Don't revoke my subscription - somebody else leaked it!:

https://twitter.com/CoryJudson/status/1003376996926283777

If NDP captures ridings like Burlington, they will be forming government. But I highly doubt it.

[King of Kensington]

Don't revoke my subscription - somebody else leaked it!:

https://twitter.com/CoryJudson/status/1003376996926283777

Considering the known right wing skew of Mainstreet riding polls, this isn't terrible at all for the NDP.

I hope you're onto something about the "right wing skew of Mainstreet riding polls" because they could then be ahead in Ottawa South, Scarborough Guildwood, Don Valley East, Willowdale, Etobicoke Lakeshore, Brampton Centre, Burlington etc.

[King of Kensington]

If NDP captures ridings like Burlington, they will be forming government. But I highly doubt it.

They're still behind.  This is the problem the NDP seems to be facing - they're coming in second with 30-something % of the vote in unexpected places. 

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Quito Maggi is tweeting their seeing significant movement in the polls tonight. This probably means the NDP pick up a point from the Liberals or something.

[King of Kensington]

Quito Maggi is tweeting their seeing significant movement in the polls tonight. This probably means the NDP pick up a point from the Liberals or something.

Hopefully it isn't "blue Liberals" running to Ford.