Ontario Election 2022

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Or, the "Jagmeet NDP" phenomenon was, like Orange Crush Quebec, a bit of a built-upon-quicksand illusion--as the federal party's going downhill in its Brampton seats in '21 demonstrated.

Part of it is surely just going up against the combination of Doug Ford and lingering OLP viability with immigrant voters? Brampton is one thing, and I'm sure we've all noted YSW, but the NDP results in Scarborough outside SW or Mississauga weren't anything to write home about either. Humber River is probably the only stand-out result in those sorts of seats.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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!

Why the confidence that Marit Stiles will be the next leader? Davenport seems to me to be a seat full of exactly the sort of easily-led, sorry, promiscuous progressives who will flock to an OLP they've been told is the real opposition again.

Glad I was wrong about this, btw!

[DL]

Interesting how wrong many polls and seat projections were in northern Ontario. In the end the NDP had a net loss of just one seat there and these ludicrous projection that Sol Mamakwa would lose were spectacularly wrong

[Estrella]

Interesting how wrong many polls and seat projections were in northern Ontario. In the end the NDP had a net loss of just one seat there and these ludicrous projection that Sol Mamakwa would lose were spectacularly wrong

It's as if the pollsters forgot how hard it is to reach rural indigenous people by telephone or on the internet.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Or, the "Jagmeet NDP" phenomenon was, like Orange Crush Quebec, a bit of a built-upon-quicksand illusion--as the federal party's going downhill in its Brampton seats in '21 demonstrated.

Part of it is surely just going up against the combination of Doug Ford and lingering OLP viability with immigrant voters? Brampton is one thing, and I'm sure we've all noted YSW, but the NDP results in Scarborough outside SW or Mississauga weren't anything to write home about either. Humber River is probably the only stand-out result in those sorts of seats.

Humber River is kind of a standout here largely because of the nature of the riding. Lots of renters, lots of social housing, and very low-income. Mississauga does have a lingering Liberal-ness because the South Asian vote (especially the Muslim vote) is not traditionally friendly to the Conservative brand, Ford nation notwithstanding; but Mississauga is very solidly middle-class, with homeowners outnumbering renters in most parts. Even Scarborough, outside low-income pockets, is primarily homeowning and middle-class, though definitely more lower middle-class than Sauga. So we can't generalize Toronto ethnoburbs (Milton is definitely emerging as a standout though, the Liberals were pretty close there even under harsh circumstances).

What's weird is even Dougie's own riding is more like Humber River than the Mississauga seats (perhaps comparable to Scarborough), but his personal brand carries a whole lot of weight there. And York South-Weston is very similar in demographics to Humber River, I think it would have gone NDP without too much resistance had Doug not run his nephew here.

[Hatman 🍁]

Interesting how wrong many polls and seat projections were in northern Ontario. In the end the NDP had a net loss of just one seat there and these ludicrous projection that Sol Mamakwa would lose were spectacularly wrong

Even Mainstreet's model had it going PC. I would be embarrassed to have even entertained the notion of it going PC. Seeing how a model coloured Kiiwetinoong was kind of a shibboleth in determining whether a model was crap or not.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Liberal showings in Milton continue to surprise me. I know the town has grown a lot recently and isn't what it used to be, a lot of Mississauga exodus happening there. There's a booming South Asian community there, which has been good for the LPC and bad for the CPC federally; though of course, longtime residents of Milton are more like exurban Tories than suburban Grits. So you'd think at the very least, Milton would be a safer hold for the PCs than the Mississauga ridings - to the contrary, the Liberals did better there than anywhere in Mississauga!

If you had told me yesterday that the Tories would get the same share of the vote in Milton as in Brampton East, I would have assumed you were smoking something very strong.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

More surprising results:

1. Del Duca lost Woodbridge, we all know that. But get this - the PC vote share in Woodbridge was almost identical to Thornhill, and actually a little higher! Conventional wisdom states that Thornhill is the safest Tory seat in the GTA, it was the only one they won in 2014, and had actually the strongest CPC showing in all of Ontario in the 2015 federal election. So either the Jewish Tory vote is softening from its Harper-era peak, or Woodbridge residents really didn't want to vote for Del Duca.

2. In Scarborough Southwest, Doly Begum (NDP) improved her vote share and margin from 2018 (there are others like this, but this one stood out)

3. Mitzie Hunter must be very personally popular. Held on in 2018, and a 15-point margin with 46.3% of the vote this time around, even as the rest of Scarbs stayed pretty constant.

4. Once-bellwether Toronto St. Paul's had considerably less Tory support than Humber River, a riding traditionally allergic to the colour blue.

5. Bobbi Ann Brady (independent, Haldimand-Norfolk) didn't just eat up Tory support, she also chipped into the left. The combined centre-left vote there was only 25%. Granted, this is solid blue territory, but you'd expect more than 25% combined under more "normal" circumstances.

6. Monte McNaughton's work as labour minister must have helped him a lot. He got 59% of the vote, a 4pt increase from 2018, even despite NBP+OP getting 8% here, presumably from past Monte voters.

7. Nobody likes Derek Sloan. You'd think he would show better than 7% running in his home riding where the longtime PC incumbent had just retired

8. In hindsight, the narrow loss in PS-Muskoka is really disappointing for the Greens. This was a perfect storm for them - Liberal candidate gets disqualified, longtime PC incumbent retires, Schreiner gets into the debate and by all accounts does very well, Greens dump resources into this seat, their candidate has run there before, and a PC majority was a foregone conclusion - and still, they came up short.

The big picture of this election may have been boring, but the riding results are very interesting! Or maybe I'm just a massive nerd. Probably both.

[King of Kensington]

"Jewish issues" (Israel, religious school funding) are less salient than they were 10 or 15 years ago.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

"Jewish issues" (Israel, faith-based school funding) are less salient than they were 10 or 15 years ago.   

This is the more plausible explanation I think. It wasn't just V-Woodbridge, Thornhill had a lower PC vote share than King-Vaughan and Mark-Unionville too. It was basically on par with Richmond Hill. Though to be fair, the PCs also lost their incumbent in Thornhill, so it's plausible that Gila Martow could have performed better.

[King of Kensington]

Looks like the question of "does Don Valley West have more NDP potential than Eglinton-Lawrence?" has been resolved.  It doesn't.

[Central Lake]

Liberal showings in Milton continue to surprise me. I know the town has grown a lot recently and isn't what it used to be, a lot of Mississauga exodus happening there. There's a booming South Asian community there, which has been good for the LPC and bad for the CPC federally; though of course, longtime residents of Milton are more like exurban Tories than suburban Grits. So you'd think at the very least, Milton would be a safer hold for the PCs than the Mississauga ridings - to the contrary, the Liberals did better there than anywhere in Mississauga!

If you had told me yesterday that the Tories would get the same share of the vote in Milton as in Brampton East, I would have assumed you were smoking something very strong.

It is also possible that whites in Milton are shifting left. Theoretically it is possible that old time white residents are moving towards the LPC and there is a influx of LPC leaning South Asians at the same time.

[Hatman 🍁]

Was the PC candidate in Thornhill even Jewish? Might not be with a name like Smith. Do you think some Jews didn't show up because of this?

[DL]

Was the PC candidate in Thornhill even Jewish? Might not be with a name like Smith. Do you think some Jews didn't show up because of this?

There are some Jews named Smith including former Ontario Liberal leader Stuart Smith

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Liberal showings in Milton continue to surprise me. I know the town has grown a lot recently and isn't what it used to be, a lot of Mississauga exodus happening there. There's a booming South Asian community there, which has been good for the LPC and bad for the CPC federally; though of course, longtime residents of Milton are more like exurban Tories than suburban Grits. So you'd think at the very least, Milton would be a safer hold for the PCs than the Mississauga ridings - to the contrary, the Liberals did better there than anywhere in Mississauga!

If you had told me yesterday that the Tories would get the same share of the vote in Milton as in Brampton East, I would have assumed you were smoking something very strong.

It is also possible that whites in Milton are shifting left. Theoretically it is possible that old time white residents are moving towards the LPC and there is a influx of LPC leaning South Asians at the same time.

Possible, but I'm not sure why this would be the case in a sustained way as it has been in Milton. Exurban whites haven't become more Liberal in Ontario - if anything, their Conservative identity has become even more entrenched.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Was the PC candidate in Thornhill even Jewish? Might not be with a name like Smith. Do you think some Jews didn't show up because of this?

There are some Jews named Smith including former Ontario Liberal leader Stuart Smith

And a lot of Jews (especially pre-WWII when there was a lot of antisemitism in Canada) anglicized their name to avoid discrimination. Think Rubinoff=Robinson, Klein=Clyne, Frankel=Franklin, etc. Or you have weird situations like Bob Rae's Jewish dad taking his Scottish wife's surname and passing it onto Bob, who would otherwise have been named "Robert Cohen".

It's not inconceivable that some Jewish people decided to change their name to "Smith", the most generic white-bread Anglo surname imaginable.

[Hatman 🍁]

I can also see Schmidt becoming Smith...

Also, looking into Bob Rae, it was his grandfather (Goodman Cohen) than changed his name to Rae

[toaster]

I’ve lost count of how many times a politician gives a concession speech and then all the pundits go on and on about how “this was the best speech they ever gave” and “if only they had been like this the whole campaign they could have won the election”. It’s almost becoming a cliche

I'm curious as to the purpose of this post? It seems like you are trying to slight Andrea, and the great speech she gave by mentioning "well, they always say this about outgoing leaders".  I've never heard it mentioned before, who has given such a great speech after resigning immediately after the election?

[DistingFlyer]

Have updated the Ontario file to include last night's election (preliminary data only, of course, but official counts took several weeks last time & I wanted to assemble something sooner) as well as the Liberal victories of 1934 & 1937:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aDDCBmdjAIPECIYPPDcX6r-Dy3lkAvV7/view?usp=sharing

[King of Kensington]

Interesting to see the NDP lose in Timmins, Windsor-Tecumseh and Hamilton East-Stoney Creek but hold on in Oshawa and in Niagara Region.

[adma]

I’ve lost count of how many times a politician gives a concession speech and then all the pundits go on and on about how “this was the best speech they ever gave” and “if only they had been like this the whole campaign they could have won the election”. It’s almost becoming a cliche

I'm curious as to the purpose of this post? It seems like you are trying to slight Andrea, and the great speech she gave by mentioning "well, they always say this about outgoing leaders".  I've never heard it mentioned before, who has given such a great speech after resigning immediately after the election?

I think it's more of an eye-rolling directed at the pundits than a slighting of Andrea.

Though speaking of cliches, one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: that the result is, yet again, fuel for that favourite Liberal "A vote for the NDP is a vote for the Conservatives" trope.  (Yeah, well, hey, Liberals--maybe you should have taken better advantage of why the NDP holds you in disdain, and worked more on carving away that Con vote than distracting yourself w/"uniting the left".  And a lot of those strong seconds in Halton and Mississauga and elsewhere should have driven home that wisdom.  But yeah, I know--maybe next time.)

[adma]

"Jewish issues" (Israel, faith-based school funding) are less salient than they were 10 or 15 years ago.   

This is the more plausible explanation I think. It wasn't just V-Woodbridge, Thornhill had a lower PC vote share than King-Vaughan and Mark-Unionville too. It was basically on par with Richmond Hill. Though to be fair, the PCs also lost their incumbent in Thornhill, so it's plausible that Gila Martow could have performed better.

And York Centre also fell off a fair bit from past monolithic support.

[adma]

That said, Horwath's legacy isn't a complete failure. In her first three elections as leader, she strengthened the NDP's position in the Ontario legislature. And in her last one, while the NDP lost votes and seats, it was not as bad as expected. She wasn't able to hold off the inevitable blue wave, but she held off the Liberals, a more achievable goal for the NDP in an environment where about 40% of Ontarians approved of the status quo, and many others were either too apathetic to turn out, or ambivalent enough that they were willing to shrug and say "okay, PC it is I guess."

And you also have to remember that when she was first elected leader, thanks to the long tail of the Rae government the notion of the NDP *ever* being in contention for power would have been laughable.  Her leadership's only a "failure" if one is under the presumption that premiership--and *only* premiership--is a goal this instant, and involving this particular person, whatever the extenuating circumstances.

[adma]

Interesting to see the NDP lose in Timmins, Windsor-Tecumseh and Hamilton East-Stoney Creek but hold on in Oshawa and in Niagara Region.

Less mentioned (because they won anyway, I suppose) is what might be considered close calls in Northern seats that were taken for granted as safe for them--Timiskaming-Cochrane became a marginal, Algoma-Manitoulin nearly became one as well, and Nickel Belt's France Gelinas only just cracked majority status in a seat where she's been polling in the 60s in recent elections.  And imagine if either of those three (yes, even Nickel Belt) became open seats...

[King of Kensington]

In University-Rosedale, it looks like Dianne Saxe votes came from NDP voters of the previous election, she was down more than 10 points while Liberal vote seemed about what I'd expect.  I believe she did especially well in the Annex and Harbord Village, judging by my surveying of signage in the riding.