Ontario Election 2022

[Hatman 🍁]

Not sure why Yarde lost, but I was surprised the party didn't chose a Sikh candidate last time in the first place. I guess Sandeep Singh was able to get a lot of the Sikh community to sign party memberships to win.

Great news about Wong-Tam. Every time we get a by-election in Toronto Centre, I always float her name as the only person who could win the seat for the NDP. Let's see if that can ring true (though, in a wave general election, her personal popularity might not be enough)

[Hatman 🍁]

The NDP targetted Eglinton Lawrence in 2015, how did that work out?

[Hatman 🍁]

The cartoonish platform for the dissident New Blue party.

https://www.newblueontario.com/new-blue-print

I've seen people overemote over "totalitarian lockdowns" as some kind of make-or-break mass voter obsession point; but acting as if *critical race theory* were an issue in Ontario is *really* out in lulu land.  (Though maybe it's the modern version of Cold War Ontario kids growing up knowing more about George Washington and 1776 than about Sir John A. and 1867, thanks to the influence of cross-border media and entertainment.)

Have you been paying attention to the past 4 years? How is CRT an American only issue?

Because it is? I've only ever heard it come up from people on the far right, i.e. people who pay 100% attention to US politics instead of their own.

[Hatman 🍁]

I can recall the comments at this place back in 2018 before campaign started. Lots of stories about people dismissing the NDP as a joke, despite the fact the Liberals were deeply unpopular at the time. I had a gut feeling the NDP would do well in that election based on the circumstances. I don't share that feeling now, however. I honestly don't know what will happen, really.

[Hatman 🍁]

Should we play the shocking predictions game?

I'll go first..  Del Duca loses in his riding of Vaughan-Woodbridge.

That would not be shocking.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet poll out today has the NDP ahead in St. Catharines. Very interesting if true. Also an earlier poll has the NDP only back 1 in Ottawa West-Nepean.  OWN seems like it's getting more and more progressive these days.

Also interestingly, the PCs seem to have totally abandoned my riding of Ottawa South. I haven't seen any signs yet, and their candidate is some hapless kid. They usually have a credible candidate here, but I guess they've realized that (A) Doug Ford is not popular in Ottawa and (B) if the Tories couldn't win the seat in 2018, they never will. Weirdly, they do have signs up in Ottawa Centre, though.

[Hatman 🍁]

They're putting them on QP briefing. Here's the St Catharines poll: https://www.qpbriefing.com/2022/05/11/riding-poll-ndp-headed-to-re-election-in-st-catharines/

[Hatman 🍁]

Should be noted that we've had a couple of provincial by-elections recently in ridings with high Indigenous populations, and we've seen a large drop in the NDP vote there, so Kiiwetinoong  may be closer than anticipated.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet poll out today has the NDP ahead in St. Catharines. Very interesting if true. Also an earlier poll has the NDP only back 1 in Ottawa West-Nepean.  OWN seems like it's getting more and more progressive these days.

It's crazy to think that John Baird was consistently elected under virtually the same boundaries as OWN. Suburban Ottawa has definitely shifted left rapidly.

True, though OWN is a 'suburb' in the same way Scarborough or North York is.

Should be noted that we've had a couple of provincial by-elections recently in ridings with high Indigenous populations, and we've seen a large drop in the NDP vote there, so Kiiwetinoong  may be closer than anticipated.

None in Ontario and none with a very high profile incumbent running for re-election...But as i said these northern seats are so personality based. The Ontario Liberals currently hold Thunder Bay-Superior North  (100% because of the personal popularity of Mike Gravelle). Now that he is not running again, I would not bet money on the Liberals retaining that seat even if they province wide popular vote goes up 10 points compared to 2018.

I mean, how high profile was Georgina Jolibois? She should have won that seat.

I agree that Gravelle was very popular in his riding, but TBSN contains the more Liberal part Thunder Bay (Port Arthur), so I think the Liberals are still favoured to keep it.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet poll out today has the NDP ahead in St. Catharines. Very interesting if true. Also an earlier poll has the NDP only back 1 in Ottawa West-Nepean.  OWN seems like it's getting more and more progressive these days.

It's crazy to think that John Baird was consistently elected under virtually the same boundaries as OWN. Suburban Ottawa has definitely shifted left rapidly.

True, though OWN is a 'suburb' in the same way Scarborough or North York is.

I find that pretty interesting about Ottawa's older suburbs, there's a lot of socio-economic diversity. But a mix of low-income immigrants in high-rise towers and middle-class government workers is a pretty bad fit for Ford's PCs - not to mention the Franco-Ontarian factor, which probably eliminates any chances of flipping Orleans. I still expect them to hold Carleton, Kanata-Carleton and Nepean, but OWN is probably gone, unless the NDP-OLP split is particularly deadly.

Kanata and Nepean (which is mostly Barrhaven) are more 'true' suburbs, though they are trending left (read: Liberal) as well. Of course, west of the Rideau, the Franco population isn't particularly significant, so the ingrained Liberal vote is weaker. Might explain why the NDP did better in OWN in 2018 than in Ottawa-Vanier or Ottawa South, the former I thought the NDP would have had a better shot at the time.

[Hatman 🍁]

No Liberal candidates in Timmins and Parry Sound-Muskoka. I think this helps the Tories in the former (especially since they are running a former mayor) and the Greens in the latter. 

[Hatman 🍁]

No Liberal candidates in Timmins and Parry Sound-Muskoka. I think this helps the Tories in the former (especially since they are running a former mayor) and the Greens in the latter.  

Why would the absence of a Liberal in Timmins help the Tories when according to every poll the second choice of Liberal voters is NDP over PC by about a 5 to 1 margin.

The latest Earnscliffe poll says among current OLP voters 62% have the NDP as second choice and just 5% have the PCs as second choice. https://earnscliffe.ca/insight/on-election-polling-tracking-ontario-voters-shifting-support-3/

I know that many generations ago there was this pattern of Liberal and PC votes being interchangeable in order to "save free enterprise" - but these days everything is polarized around whether people support Ford or not I have to think that it can only hurt the PCs to face only one opposition candidate.

Because it's Northern Ontario. The NDP vote in the riding is usually pretty constant, while the Liberals and Tories trade votes back and forth. Just look at how the riding has voted in recent elections. And that's not unique to Timmins, it's a phenomena across Northern Ontario.

[Hatman 🍁]

Based on past results in the area, I'd say this is how the Timmins electorate is split

30% NDP base
15% Promiscuous progressives (always vote Liberal except when the NDP's ahead)
10% Populist voters (usually vote NDP or PC, but may vote New Blue this time)
25% Liberal to Tory swing voters
10% Tory base
10% Liberal base

So, I think it's safe to say the NDP will get a minimum of 45% of the vote (first two categories), and the Tories will get a minimum of 35% of the vote. From the polling I've seen, "base Liberal voters" usually prefer the NDP over the Tories, but I'm not convinced that's the case in Timmins. It's also unknown what the personal popularity of former mayor George Pirie is. That might eat into the NDP vote a bit. Bottom line is, the NDP has the advantage, but the Tories do have a narrow path to victory.

[Hatman 🍁]

For Parry Sound-Muskoka:

Green base: 5%
Persuadable Greens: 15% (a good chunk of this are NDP swing voters)
Promiscuous progressives: 10%
Tory base: 40%
NDP base: 10%
Liberal base: 10%
Liberal-Tory swing voters: 10%

So, I don't think the Greens have a path to victory, unless they're able to win over Liberal-Tory swing voters.

[Hatman 🍁]

Some more riding polls, but they're paywalled so I don't know the results, but the Liberals have a comfortable lead in Kingston and the Tories are ahead in York South-Weston. The latter would be historically unprecedented (it hasn't gone Tory in 70 years), but not that much of a surprise considering the tentacles of Ford Nation (and a literal Ford is the candidate there)

[Hatman 🍁]

Re Timmins & Parry Sound-Muskoka

Timmins --> Easiest riding to campaign in the province since it's relatively small geographically AND in terms of population (40k ish) after the 2 New Northern ridings were created.  Any remaining Liberals are pretty much die hards (only got 8% of the vote last time), most would have jumped to NDP/Con in the last election.  Despite that even if you give those 8% of voters to the PCs, they still fall short. It's more about how much of an ONDP --> PC swing happens, might happen. Still too hard to say.

Parry Sound-Muskoka --> I think it's the perfect storm here for the Greens.  Not only will the Liberal voters change to Green, it might actually also have an effect on would-be NDP voters to swap to Green seeing as now there's one clear alternative. The PC Candidate is not an incumbent, so there's an opportunity to get former PC voters too. The new PC Candidate is also not the most attractive guy, this shouldn't matter, but these things do tend to affect voters.  If you look at Graydon Smith, and then Matt Richter, the people of Muskoka especially the skiers, wakeboarder, under 40s who are all about active lifestyles, will not be moving for Smith.

Actually, I'd almost argue that Graydon Smith *does* have a sort of "attractiveness"--that is, if electing an MPP who bears an uncanny resemblance to Peter Griffin is your thing.  (And when push comes to shove: sure, Muskoka might project "active lifestyle" to the outside observer, but the silent majority/plurality of PSM's constituents are, well, "folks", to use that Doug Ford-ism.)

He's also another mayor (in the largest municipality in the riding too) who has decided to run for the Tories, so he certainly has some appeal to locals.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

I wonder how Highway 413 will play into votes here. I'm pretty sure it runs through the riding. Of course the highway is very controversial, and maybe a strange alliance of environmentalists and NIMBYs will prop up Del Duca here. But I would assume the 413 also has a lot of support among commuters in the region, probably outnumbering the anti-413 crowd. If you're stuck in GTA traffic and hear that one guy wants to build you a shiny new road, and the other guy doesn't, you're more likely to prefer the former.

Edit: I'll also add that, while I don't live in Woodbridge nor plan to vote Liberal, if I did live in the riding, I'd find it endearing that Del Duca took the risk of throwing himself into a hard-to-win race in his hometown, instead of running off to a safe seat. Doubt that will make much of a difference on e-day, but who knows?

Well, it's an easy out for him if he loses his riding. I think whether or not he wins his own riding or not would make for an easy indicator as to whether Liberals will tolerate him as leader for the next four years.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Mainstreet daily tracking has the NDP pulling ahead of the OLP for the first time on popular vote and up 33-13 in seats!

I wonder if people are taking a look at their local campaigns in terms of making up their minds about who to vote for to stop Ford. Incumbency helping out the NDP, not to mention having more money and infrastructure.

[Hatman 🍁]

Northern Ontario regional polling is always a crap shoot. The NDP always does better than the polls there, probably due to low response rates among certain groups (Indigenous, Working Class, and to a certain extent, Francophones)

[Hatman 🍁]

Here is our seat by seat forecast: https://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2022/06/ekos-seat-projection-3/

Of course, I don't actually think the NDP will get 30 seats, it's just difficult to decide which one's they won't win. Certainly Oshawa is on the top of the list for me though (I had some help from Joseph Angolano on this forecast, and he thought it would go NDP). I also wanted to call Spadina-Fort York for the Liberals.

[Hatman 🍁]

I also wanted to call Spadina-Fort York for the Liberals.

That would be the first break in the pattern of the downtown TO seats voting the same way.  Spadina-Fort York seems to have the weakest NDP base of the three.  I have it in the NDP column.

Maybe, though the Liberals are stronger in Toronto Centre. Kind of remarkable that the NDP does just as well there as the other two ridings though. I think it might be their best riding of the three due to KWT this time.

In hindsight, it was silly of me to think University-Rosedale and Spadina-Fort York would vote differently. Not even Kevin Vuong himself could make that happen.

[Hatman 🍁]

Some of it is herding. Mainstreet has the Tories going from 35 to 39 in just one day? Yeah, right.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wow, a very good night for the NDP considering expectations. It really helps to have the power of incumbency. Except if you're Gilles Bisson, or in Brampton.

Obviously Thunder Bay is the biggest shocker of the night. Huge win in Ottawa West-Nepean, too. Less of a surprise. The NDP continues to do better in Ottawa every election. The NDP hasn't won more than 1 seat in Ottawa since 1977. I'm also ecstatic the NDP is headed for second place in my riding of Ottawa South. First time since 1990 (when the riding had more left wing neighbourhoods). Toronto was also a pleasant surprise, holding on to St. Paul's and Humber River-Black Creek.

Sad to see the Singhs lose in Brampton.

Obviously there are some concerns for the NDP going ahead. Any riding where an incumbent steps down is automatically vulnerable. I guess Hamilton East and Windsor-Tecumseh are no longer tier 1 NDP seats.  

[Hatman 🍁]

Ridings I found interesting:

1. Barrie--Springwater: Surprisingly close, I guess the mayor really is popular. I thought the natural PC-ness of Barrie would make it a pretty easy win.

Lehman won the mayoralty in both 2014 and 2018 with around 90% of the vote.

I know we like to sh*t on riding polls, but there were a couple that showed Lehman winning. Of course, I didn't believe them because the Liberals have never won either cracked Barrie seat before, and I know the area tends to over-poll for the Liberals.

[Hatman 🍁]

More on the NDP in Ottawa.... Joel Harden beat Paul Dewar's high mark in 2011, winning 54% of the vote (Dewar only got 52% then). Looks like turnout made the difference. Ottawa Centre is known for very large turnouts (especially in federal elections), but only 55% showed up. Liberals stayed home.