Ontario municipal elections, (October 27, 2014) - Master thread

[DL]

A 20-year old Mike Ford with only a high school diploma and family business experience defeated a highly-qualified, experienced, centre-right incumbent in Toronto city council.

Not quite true, the incumbent trustee that Mike Ford beat was John Hastings was not highly qualified or centre right at all. He was a rabidly rightwing social conservative who often seconded bigoted motions by Sam Sotiropoulos - the homophobic trustee from Scarborough-Agincourt who lost on Monday. Based on some post-election interviews, Mike Ford actually sounds like an improvement over the guy he beat - he actually spoke out against Sotiropoulos's homophobic remarks etc...

[DL]

This perception doesn't fall neatly into the categories of left/right wing. It's more like an us/them tribal identity. It's why this constituency will vote for Harper, Wynne, and Ford without feeling contradictory. It's why they won't vote for Chow, despite her policies being the most effective at combating the inequality that incites their anger. It's also why they see a millionaire like Ford as one of them. It's not about policy, it's about perception.

*takes academic hat off*

One question we will never know if what would have happened if Ford had been diagnosed with cancer two days later and had to drop out of the race past the deadline for his brother to enter the race - then there would have been no Ford on the ballot at all and it would have been a pure Tory vs Chow contest. How would all those very low income visible minority voters in the 'burbs have voted if their only choices were John Tory and Olivia Chow? We will never know.

I suspect that a large chunk of those people would prefer Chow to Tory but that a large chunk would just stay home

[DL]

Its hard to say - if Ford had been out of the race there would have been no reason for anyone to "vote strategically for Tory" so I suspect that Chow would have had a stronger showing in the downtown Toronto wards - and who knows what would have happened elsewhere...one gets the impression that the working class segment of Ford's enduring support was more agitatedly anti-Tory than anti-Chow.

[DL]

Miller also did OK in the suburbs and won some wards in Etobicoke and Scarborough and came close in a few more in 2003.

[DL]

The Fords appear to have accomplished something I can't think of having been accomplished elsewhere in the Western democracies: a multi-racial, right-wing populist backlash movement.  

Its a very good point. For all of the horrible things about the Ford phenomenon, they have never pandered to anti-immigrant sentiments (unless you count Ford saying that "orientals work like dogs") and they haven't been particularly big on law and order either (esp. what with Rob Ford's well documented links to drug gangs etc...)

[DL]

That's for sure.  It's no coincidence that Ford's lowest share of the vote was in the city's "gayest" ward.

About two thirds of the electorate in the city's "gayest ward" is actually not in the gay area, its in the fabulously wealthy, old money enclave of Rosedale - where I suspect John Tory would have had over 90% of the vote.

[DL]

The problem with the "at-large" system in Vancouver historically is that the turnout is always much higher from the wealthy western parts of the city than from the poorer eastern parts - and as a result you end up with a city council almost entirely composed of people who represent the rich areas where people tend to tur out. If you have a ward based system then then  east end gets a councillor - whether the turnout there is 30% or 80%