Ontario 2014 (June 12th)

[Krago]

The vote shares in Forum's 'Northern Ontario' from the 2011 provincial election were:
PC 36%
Lib 30%
NDP 29%
Green 4%
Others 1%


My quick-and-dirty seat projection using the Forum Regional breakdown is:
PC 48
Lib 41
NDP 18



Does anyone here have a clue how Forum managed to get a four-seat Liberal lead using these numbers?  They must use the same programming that the "Vote Compass" folks use.  That's the quiz on the CBC website, where you mark your position on different issues and it tells you to vote Liberal.

[Citizen Hats]

maybe they just looked at their riding by riding results form their poll with horrific margins of error?  Forum's projections always seem off

[Hatman 🍁]

Forum's seat model has always been s**t.  The cynic in me feels like it's skewed in favour of the Liberals because that's what the Toronto Star wants for its narrative.

Does anyone here have a clue how Forum managed to get a four-seat Liberal lead using these numbers?  They must use the same programming that the "Vote Compass" folks use.  That's the quiz on the CBC website, where you mark your position on different issues and it tells you to vote Liberal.

This literally made me laugh out loud

[RogueBeaver]

I'm increasingly tempted by the pre-polling era, one where parties outright owned papers.

Hudak: lower corporate taxes.

Wynne/PC lawsuit moving ahead.

Awkward photo op for Hudak.

[Hatman 🍁]

At least that way you know what you're reading is going to be biased and for who.

[lilTommy]

You do realize Forum's "Northern Ontario" includes all of the 705, right?

Oh, and the Liberals currently have Vaughan, so no surprise there.

Sorry, I confused Thornhill with Vaughan

[mileslunn]

Weird. My projection has the NDP with a healthy lead in Timmins, but I'm factoring in the EKOS poll which had the Liberals ahead in the 705.

Weird results I have in my projection:

Barrie going Liberal (due to EKOS poll)
Scarborough-Guildwood going PC (close by-election skewing my numbers)
Ottawa South going PC (ditto- but plausible)
Kenora-Rainy River going PC (due to EKOS's very small 807 sample)

Also, I suspect Sudbury will go NDP due to no Liberal incumbent, but my model has the Liberal ahead at this point. Once we know who the candidates are, I will have a better idea of how to tweak my model.

Barrie is fairly solidly Tory so unless Hudak does something incredibly stupid I am pretty sure it will stay PC. 

Scarborough-Guildwood went Liberal federally so the Liberals would have to see an even bigger implosion to lose this.  Its only shown as competitive due to the by-election results which skew things  slightly.  For example I don't think Etobicoke-Lakeshore is a lock for the PCs, I could easily see it swinging back to the Liberals.

Ottawa South - This is where uniform swings don't work.  I've noticed in the Ottawa ridings, probably because its a political team, riding results tend to be very consistent election after election.  The Liberals never fall below 40% even in a bad election and never get over 50% even in a landslide one while the PCs always stay above 30% no matter how bad they do and seem unable to crack the 40% mark no matter how well they do while the NDP is always under 20%.

Sudbury could stay Liberal, but if an election were called today, I think the NDP would have an edge there.

The problem with the Northern Ontario is areas south of North Bay have very different voting patterns than areas north of it.  So the results need to be taken with caution as the PCs are probably in the upper 40s and maybe even low 50s in the Barrie to North Bay area which is normally considered Central not Northern Ontario while they are probably in the 20s in what is normally thought of as Northern Ontario, otherwise north of North Bay.  By contrast Central Ontario asides from the 905 belt is one of the NDP's weakest areas whereas by contrast Northern Ontario is one of its strongest.  The Liberals on the other hand are fairly evenly distributed so if they are only at 30% they are looking at close to a route.

[mileslunn]

Forum, projected

... suspect; The Liberals win back Vaughan? The NDP losses Kenora-Rainy River and Timmins-James Bay? Those I doubt seriously

There is no way the PCs will win Guelph, that's a university town while London North Centre is quite tough unless the centre-left splits perfectly as well as Deb Matthews despite her controversy elsewhere is well liked in her riding.  St. Catharines barely went Liberal last time around so although Jim Bradley's popularity may have carried him through the Harris years, I am not so sure it will work this time around.  Also Forum and 308 seem show a stronger swing towards the PCs in the 416 area code than 905.  Usually PC support is 15-20 points lower in the 416 than 905 and usually the best 416 riding is only around 5 points better for the PCs than the worse 905 riding.  In addition I've noticed both provincially and federally, usually the Conservative's best riding in popular vote in the 416 tends to closely match their overall province wide average.

Kenora-Rainy River was only close last time around as it lacked an incumbent, but with an incumbent now, the NDP should hold this.  Federally the Tories won largely due to the opposition of the carbon tax in 2008, while held this due to both incumbency as well as opposition to the gun registry.  I suspect 5-10% of voters in Northern Ontario (I mean true north not central) voted Tory federally for that reason alone and wouldn't have otherwise so I suspect provincially they will follow their usual voting patterns.  In Timmins-James Bay, apparently the PCs and Liberals cut a deal that the Liberals would run a paper candidate and instead help the PCs since they thought by uniting behind one party they could unseat Gilles Bisson.  If it didn't work then, it probably won't this time.  In many ways what you saw there is not too different than what you have in BC where the Blue Liberals and Conservatives unite under the BC Liberals to keep the NDP out.  Also in Sault Ste. Marie you saw this in the other direction so for whatever reason it seems in some ridings the swing is mostly between the PCs and Liberals not Liberals/NDP.

[Holmes]

Forum, projected

Timmins-James Bay? Haha.

[RogueBeaver]

Could TJB be an Ungava-type upset?

[Citizen Hats]

Could TJB be an Ungava-type upset?

me thinks it's overspill from Tories polling well and the NDP not polling well south of North Bay, which shares an area code with the North.

[Linus Van Pelt]

What are you all actually doing, mathematically, to get these projections?

[Hatman 🍁]

Weird. My projection has the NDP with a healthy lead in Timmins, but I'm factoring in the EKOS poll which had the Liberals ahead in the 705.

Weird results I have in my projection:

Barrie going Liberal (due to EKOS poll)
Scarborough-Guildwood going PC (close by-election skewing my numbers)
Ottawa South going PC (ditto- but plausible)
Kenora-Rainy River going PC (due to EKOS's very small 807 sample)

Also, I suspect Sudbury will go NDP due to no Liberal incumbent, but my model has the Liberal ahead at this point. Once we know who the candidates are, I will have a better idea of how to tweak my model.

Barrie is fairly solidly Tory so unless Hudak does something incredibly stupid I am pretty sure it will stay PC. 

Scarborough-Guildwood went Liberal federally so the Liberals would have to see an even bigger implosion to lose this.  Its only shown as competitive due to the by-election results which skew things  slightly.  For example I don't think Etobicoke-Lakeshore is a lock for the PCs, I could easily see it swinging back to the Liberals.

Ottawa South - This is where uniform swings don't work.  I've noticed in the Ottawa ridings, probably because its a political team, riding results tend to be very consistent election after election.  The Liberals never fall below 40% even in a bad election and never get over 50% even in a landslide one while the PCs always stay above 30% no matter how bad they do and seem unable to crack the 40% mark no matter how well they do while the NDP is always under 20%.

Sudbury could stay Liberal, but if an election were called today, I think the NDP would have an edge there.

The problem with the Northern Ontario is areas south of North Bay have very different voting patterns than areas north of it.  So the results need to be taken with caution as the PCs are probably in the upper 40s and maybe even low 50s in the Barrie to North Bay area which is normally considered Central not Northern Ontario while they are probably in the 20s in what is normally thought of as Northern Ontario, otherwise north of North Bay.  By contrast Central Ontario asides from the 905 belt is one of the NDP's weakest areas whereas by contrast Northern Ontario is one of its strongest.  The Liberals on the other hand are fairly evenly distributed so if they are only at 30% they are looking at close to a route.

One thing with Ottawa South is that the McGuinty brand is pretty strong. In the first election without one in a long time, it was very close. With the same three candidates running, it's not inconceivable that it could go Tory. Plus, McGuinty was from Ottawa, which I think helped the Liberals in the region, so now that he's no longer leader, I can see some swing in the region. I know that between 2006 and 2008 the federal Tories saw a large swing in the city.

What are you all actually doing, mathematically, to get these projections?

I use a ratio projection on a regional basis, but altering results in ridings that have had by-elections (taking into account polling averages around the by-elections). Unlike Brendan, I will also be doing some riding level tweaks to get more believable results. Tweaks will be based on math as well though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Careful with the subsamples, comrades. That way madness lies.

[Hatman 🍁]

Careful with the subsamples, comrades. That way madness lies.

More accurate than applying swings province-wide.

Another problem with Brendan's map is he is using one poll. You need to do regional polling aggregates from multiple polling companies to get good numbers. For example, the EKOS poll gave me some lol-worthy results such as the Liberals winning Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock (the ghost of John Tory's failures lives).

[RogueBeaver]

My guess: Wynne's spat with Harper, Horwath's TTC comments and Hudak's photo op (which some non-Star journos are comparing to le shove) won't be game-changers. At least for now.

[Hatman 🍁]

I guess the media craves "game changing" moments. Let's see if it has traction.

[MaxQue]

Could TJB be an Ungava-type upset?

No. Ungava had a Liberal base in the Native reservations and Inuit villages. I suspect than much was up to differential turnout. TJB doesn't have any specific PC base, in my view.

[Holmes]

The PC's "base" in TJB is Timmins. But it's not much of a base for the party in the least. They'd have more luck trying to get Kenora.

[adma]

Could TJB be an Ungava-type upset?

No. Ungava had a Liberal base in the Native reservations and Inuit villages. I suspect than much was up to differential turnout. TJB doesn't have any specific PC base, in my view.

It was more a star candidate + supertargeting situation in TJB last time, anyway.  (And ditto re supertargeting in Kenora-RR, all the more so as the *federal* seat of Kenora is held federally by Greg Rickford--the only Con elected in the North in 2008.)

[adma]

And on the whole, this thread demonstrates why I, personally, would rather steer clear of raw projection-type methodology, at least when it comes to Ontario--it works better in the UK and US, where political party demos and patterns have much more of a set pattern.  I like when there's wiggle-room for chance and miracles...

[MaxQue]

The PC's "base" in TJB is Timmins. But it's not much of a base for the party in the least. They'd have more luck trying to get Kenora.

I thought of writing that, but it's not really a PC base. It's less NDP-friendly than the rest of the riding, but not a PC base.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And on the whole, this thread demonstrates why I, personally, would rather steer clear of raw projection-type methodology, at least when it comes to Ontario--it works better in the UK and US, where political party demos and patterns have much more of a set pattern.  I like when there's wiggle-room for chance and miracles...

Yeah. Ontario has had multiple surprise landslides in living memory...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, Timmins-James Bay could hardly be called 'close' in 2011. Solid margin, particularly given the run-dead business.

[Hatman 🍁]

It's true the old Liberal base in Timmins is shifting to the Tories. I guess you can call it the anti-NDP vote.

And on the whole, this thread demonstrates why I, personally, would rather steer clear of raw projection-type methodology, at least when it comes to Ontario--it works better in the UK and US, where political party demos and patterns have much more of a set pattern.  I like when there's wiggle-room for chance and miracles...

Oh, don't ruin the fun! Ontario has been very predictable in recent elections (save the 2011 federal election). Some ridings due swing with the flow, but some ridings have strong incumbents or strong candidacies that throw a wrench in any model. The *fun* is trying to pick up on those strengths. I hope to do that with my model.