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

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8. Alex Mazer
Another interesting day-one candidate is Alex Mazer, who’s running in Ward 18. He has a history of activism on municipal budget issues, and he used to be a director of policy at the Ontario Ministry of Finance.
- Two "Liberals" battling (thus far) but he leans more progressive then Bailiao http://torontoist.com/2014/01/meet-a-council-candidate-alex-mazer-ward-18/

As we know Ward 18 has voted pretty overwhelmingly NDP in the last federal and provincial elections and used to be Adam Giambrone's seat. IfLiberal Ana Bailao is  being challnged by another Liberal Alex Mazer, I wonder if it creates an opportunity for someone with NDP ties to also run and win what with the nig "L" Liberal vote being so split?

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OLP is completely Balkanized on their Torontonian candidate choice. Some want Stintz, most don't want Chow, some still waiting on Tory.

Contrary to the tone of that article I hear that the vast majority of Ontario Liberals will quietly back Chow...starting with Kathleen Wynne herself

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Forum "poll" has Ford up 35-30-22 over Chow and Tory.

All I'm interested in right now is a poll of just a head to head of Ford vs. Chow since I'm convinced that come Election Day, they will be the only two candidates still in the race

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New FR poll:

Chow - 31
Ford - 31
Tory - 27

Tory's candidacy hurts Chow the most, as the battle is for non-Ford voters, as Ford nation will back him no matter what. The more candidates that run, the better shot Ford has of winning.

Actually its good for Chow to have Tory in the race. He's a turn off to working class Ford supporters who see him as a stuffy Rosedale blue blood...and that means that "soft" Ford supporters will likely go Chow over Tory as Ford inevitably erodes (esp. with the stories about how he has lost his entire database from the last election!). Its also good news for Chow that Tory has helped to totally marginalize Karen Stintz. Even though people "in the know" see Stintz as a rightwing Tory - to the average low information voter - she is a young photogenic woman who got into a fight with Rob Ford...if she got any traction she could actually draw votes from Chow in a way that Tory never can.

Its a long way to October, but if you are Olivia Chow there are worse places to be than facing FOUR rightwing opponents and zero competition on the left (apart from a few people who think Stintz is progressive in a case of "mistaken identity") 

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There are soft ford voters. His hardcore vote is probably about 20% and there is another 10% who are parked with him until they see who else is running and until they see who seems to represent them. Most of that soft 10% are low income visible minorities.

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How can anyone be a soft Rob Ford voter, let alone 1/3 of his base??

Very easily...we are still in the "phony war" phase of the campaign and most people don't even know who is running against him...I think there are people who are parked with Ford because they don't know who else out there might appeal to them and other candidates are still hypothetical.

Tory will go after Ford because he will try to get Ford's people to vote "strategically" for him to stop Chow...but who knows what happens to Ford's voters if we get into Oct. and he is consistently a poor third in the polls and people start to give up on him as having a chance...not to mention the very strong likelihood that he will be criminally charged before election day.

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I have seen polls where at least a third of people who now say they would vote for Ford also say they may change their mind and are not at all certain about it...I also think that the Ford campaign will be very challenged when it comes to getting their vote (such that it exists) out - by all accounts his money has totally dried up and no one is donating to him and his entire database went out the door with Nick Kouvalis...

Having Ford attack the police today and have Tory denounce him for it creates an amusing civil war among rightwingers in Toronto who are usually very pro-police!

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But but we were told that Ford's absolute FLOOR was 30 or even 35% and that he could never possibly conceivably get less than that - now the latest poll has him at 28% - and I think that is likely his ceiling more than his floor.

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Keep in mind that Forum (for some reason) never ever gives numbers on how many people are undecided and you can be sure that AT LEAST 10% are undecided since that's the norm in almost every poll on voters support. When a poll says 28% would vote for Ford - that is among DECIDED voters - but I would hypothesize that the people who are undecided are overwhelmingly anti-Ford people who are undecided between Chow, Tory and the others.

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What is a "populist" and is it up to "Ford nation" to define it?

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This is ridiculous: Chow being interviewed by her own strategist. But that's Sun "News" for ya.

Sun News is usually so ridiculously biased towards the right that if once in a million years they do something "nice" for a leftwing candidate - i will not compalin!

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In a two way race there are far more "anyone but Ford" voters than there are "anyone but Chow". If those Forum numbers are real (I only some some fragments on sarah Thomson's website and they looked raw and unweighted) - you have to think that the only think to have happened between this poll and the last one - was John Tory's official launch! I guess the more Tory campaigns the fewer votes he gets!

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Forum Toronto poll: Chow 34, Ford 27, Tory 24.

This is very good news for Olivia Chow, she would much rather have a polarized race between her and Rob ford than against Tory. It is lethal to Tory's campaign for him to be polling third behind Ford

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So in the last two weeks polls have had Tory as low as 24% and as high as 39% - still 4 months to go!

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No one is going to win over 40%, its 2003 again

In 2003, Miller won with 43% of the vote

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If Soknacki drops out i predict that even though he is right of centre - he will endorse Chow - they have the same position on the LRT instead of subway in Scarborough and apparently they are personally very friendly from having both been on the budget committee 2000-2006

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The other thing is where does Stintz 5-6% go? My feeling is Tory, but will she stick it out?

I'm not so sure about that - some of the relatively small number of people parked with Stintz like her because she's a woman and because she was depicted as having a stood up to Ford - so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of her vote - such that it exists - would go to Chow, especially given the surprising animosity between her and Tory lately - she really tore into him at the last debate.

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IMHO, we are at a stage of the campaign where Tory is still "all things to all people" and has been very vague about his policies and that is letting people project whatever they want on to him...this will not last indefinitely. The other candidates will all start driving up Tory's "negatives" in various ways - and believe me he has plenty.

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This article helps to explain the popularity of Rob Ford among Blacks: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=199045

Its an interesting phenomenon - even if highly anecdotal...but Blacks are a relatively small proportion of the population - much smaller than the proportion who would still vote for Ford - the media is titillated by the idea of poor Blacks voting for Ford - but the real backbone of his support come from cranky old white men in the 'burbs who drive cars and own their homes. 

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Karen Stintz has dropped out of the race. She is not endorsing any other candidate and will exit political life completely and not seek a council seat. Good riddance. What few votes she had will split 50/50 between Chow and Tory in all likelhood

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Anywho... wonder what Sarah Thomson is up to? she is now joined the 20+ candidates in the race for ward 20
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sarah-thomson-quits-race-for-mayor-will-seek-council-seat-1.2760487?utm_content=bufferb3fed&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

My estimate is that she will actually do rather well, if 2010's Ward 27 race tells us anything, a candidate can win with under 30%. But I think it will be Cressy with a slim margin over Thomson; there are no other "big" names that I can see running there outside those two.

I'm not so sure Thomson will even come in second...she has really embarrassed herself as a mayoral candidate polling at under 1% and being an object of ridicule and a buffoon. The biggest news she made was showing up to register in a horse drawn carriage! For Cressy to lose there has to be big name candidate who all the big guns in the Liberal party get behind - that person is NOT Sarah Thomson - even Liberals regard her as a lunatic and she was literally hounded out of the local liberal riding association because she was so hated.

Right now Cressy is the only one out of 27 candidates who has NDP ties - no competition there. on top of that he is backed by a slew of big name Liberals and PCs and Greens and the presidents of most of the residents associations. Then you have the losing Liberal candidates from 1999, 2007 and 2011 running all claiming to be the only Liberal who can beat Cressy - then you have about 5 other people claiming to have Liberal ties...plus three people with PC ties, plus a variety of itinerant independent kooks. 

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I guess Toronto Liberals have found their candidate, and it's not Olivia Chow.

Amazing that John Tory could actually win an election.

Toronto Liberals better be careful about wishing for something - it might happen. John Tory is a lifelong dyed in the wool Ontario PC and federal CPC member and supporter. He is a big fan of Stephen Harper and he would LOVE to see the ontario PCs back in the game. if he becomes mayor of TO - he could do a lot to help the Ontario PCs reestablish themselves in Toronto and win back all the moderate conservative votes that have drifted to the liberals - thins could be lethal to the ontario liberals in 2018.

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Ward 20
Joe Cressy 47% (established left NDP)
while other candidates (26 or so) are stuck in single digits (not sure if that including Thomson)

Yeah they had Sarah Thomson second at 9% and she gets massive DISapproval - even from Liberals.

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Rob Ford has dropped out due to his health. His brother Doug Ford is running instead.

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Holy sh**t: Star endorses Tory. When was the last time they endorsed a Conservative?

Mel Lastman in 2000?