Ontario 2014 (June 12th)

[adma]

Is it just me, or were the PCs actually more efficient poll-winners in a lot of Toronto ridings in 2014 compared to 2011?

What does that mean?

I suppose that they won more polls than their vote share would suggest?

Well, yes--in places like central Etobicoke, Forest Hill, the Willowdale-into-Scarborough axis, it'd appear that they won more whole neighbourhoods than "spot polls".  (Wonder if that's a reflection of Wynne's leftward tack or Hudak's more "economically-based" platform)

[Hatman 🍁]

Perhaps it's a sign of a polarization of the electorate.

[Krago]

A few observations...

(1)  I've cleaned up some of the Location names on the spreadsheet (e.g. combined NIAGARA ON THE LAKE with NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE).  Be careful using those location names, since they are not necessarily municipalities or Canada Post communities, but are whatever name the Returning Office happened to use.  'East York' consists of just three polls in Crescentown.

(2)  I've also added a sheet showing the number of polls won by each paty, and ties, in each ED.  Combined polls and split polls are counted as one; cancelled polls were ignored.  The closest a party came to winning every poll was in Don Valley East.  The Liberals won 193 out of 194 and tied with the PCs in the other.

(3)  There were two cases where the runner-up actually won more polls than the winner: Sarnia-Lambton and Thornhill.  Thornhill was the only seat where a party won more votes cast on election day, but lost the seat due to the advance polls.  The ridings where a party that came first in the advance polls did not win were: Durham, London West, Oshawa, Ottawa West-Nepean, Parkdale-High Park, Scarborough-Rouge River and Sudbury.

(4)  The Libertarians won one poll in York-Simcoe and tied the Vegan Environmental Party in one in Trinity Spadina.  The one in York-Simcoe - The Pipe and Slipper Home in Keswick - has an interesting history.  In 2007, there were 34 electors on the list, all 34 voted, and all 34 votes were cast for PC MPP Julia Munro.  A little bit of North Korea on Lake Simcoe.

(5)  The closest three-way fight by Location belongs to Hartington, Ontario (Lib 103, NDP 97, PC 95), closely followed by Goderich (PC 1,287, NDP 1,263, Lib 1,164).

[Hatman 🍁]

How the heck did the NDP win the advance polls in Scarborough Rouge River?

[lilTommy]

How the heck did the NDP win the advance polls in Scarborough Rouge River?

Well I think local candidate being very tied to the local Tamil community played a part, and the NDP only lost 4% which is pretty darn good for what happened in the rest of Scarborough for the NDP.

Interesting to see 4 ridings the NDP won (two of them new wins) would have been lost had the advanced polling rung true. demographics? advance pollers are usually older perhaps?

[King of Kensington]

Well, yes--in places like central Etobicoke, Forest Hill, the Willowdale-into-Scarborough axis, it'd appear that they won more whole neighbourhoods than "spot polls".  (Wonder if that's a reflection of Wynne's leftward tack or Hudak's more "economically-based" platform)

And these blue blobs look more impressive on a map.

[Krago]

A couple more points about advance polls:

(1)  This time 13.3% of Ontario voters went to the advance polls.  In the last federal election, 15.2% of Ontario voters turned up at the advance polls and another 1.7% cast ballots under the Special Voting Rules.

(2)  The Tories did 5.5% better before June 12  than on E-Day, but the NDP did 5 points worse.

Before Election Day: LIB 39.4%, PC 36.1%, NDP 19.5%, GRN 4.0%

On Election Day: LIB 38.6%, PC 30.6%, NDP 24.4%, GRN 4.9%

Popular Vote: LIB 38.7%, PC 31.3%, NDP 23.7%, GRN 4.8%

[DL]

Did the NDP actually gain ground and the PCs lose ground in the week between the advance poll and the election day voting - or was it just that the kinds of people who tend to vote in the advance poll are more likely to be PC voters and less likely to be NDP voters?

[Hatman 🍁]

Or a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B

[Krago]

Transposing the new provincial poll-by-poll results (excluding advance polls) onto the new federal boundaries gives this:

Lib 70 (+12)
PC 31 (+3)
NDP 20 (-1)

The closest notional results would be in Bay of Quinte (95 votes), Barrie—Innisfil (189 votes) and Flamborough—Glanbrook (246 votes).

A few selections:

Brampton East: NDP 53%, LIB 32%, PC 14%, GRN 2%, OTH 0%
Spadina-Fort York: LIB 48%, NDP 27%, PC 18%, GRN 5%, OTH 2%
Toronto Centre: LIB 60%, NDP 20%, PC 12%, GRN 5%, OTH 3%
University-Rosedale: LIB 48%, NDP 24%, PC 19%, GRN 7%, OTH 2%

[adma]

How the heck did the NDP win the advance polls in Scarborough Rouge River?

Well I think local candidate being very tied to the local Tamil community played a part, and the NDP only lost 4% which is pretty darn good for what happened in the rest of Scarborough for the NDP.

Might there have been some "ethnicized" advance-voting rally as well?  (I've sometimes noticed this w/S Asian candidates--as well as the Jewish vote whenever an election coincides w/a holiday)

[King of Kensington]

Trinity-Spadina by neighborhood (best for each party in bold):
                          
Christie Pits  NDP 45.3%, Liberals 38.4%, Greens 7.2%, PCs 6.4%
Seaton Village  Liberals 41.9%, NDP 35.3%, Greens 10.5%, PCs 6.1%
Annex west of Spadina  Liberals 49.2%, NDP 29.5%, Greens 11.3%, PCs 8.3%
Annex east of Spadina  Liberals 49.6%, NDP 22.8%, PCs 18%, Greens 7.2%
Bickford Park  NDP 45.9%, Liberals 36.4%, Greens 8.2%, PCs 6.9%
Palmerston  Liberals 43%, NDP 39.3%, Greens 9%, PCs 7.1%
Little Italy  Liberals 44.4%, NDP 39.1%, PCs 7.9%, Greens 6.5%
Kensington  Liberals 44.8%, NDP 37.2%, Greens 8.3%, PCs 7.8%
Harbord Village  Liberals 44%, NDP 31.2%, Greens 15.4%, PCs 7.6%
University of Toronto  Liberals 45%, NDP 29.1%, PCs 16.9%, Greens 7.5%
Trinity Bellwoods  Liberals 46.9%, NDP 35.8%, PCs 7.9%, Greens 7.2%
Alexandra Park  Liberals 48.1%, NDP 35.3%, PCs 8.7%, Greens 3.8%
Grange  Liberals 50.6%, NDP 30.5%, PCs 11%, Greens 7.3%
Bay Street Corridor  Liberals 52.3%, NDP 20.9%, PCs 20.2%, Greens 4.1%
Harbourfront  Liberals 47.5%, PCs 24.7%, NDP 21.5%, Greens 4.2%
King-Spadina  Liberals 48.5%, PCs 24.2%, NDP 20.2%, Greens 5.2%
Niagara  Liberals 48.3%, NDP 31.1%, PCs 12.8%, Greens 5.8%
Liberty Village  Liberals 46.9%, NDP 28.8%, PCs 16.3%, Greens 5.7%
Bathurst Quay  NDP 47.1%, Liberals 38%, PCs 9.3%, Greens 3.5%
Toronto Islands  NDP 64.3%, Liberals 16%, Greens 13.4%, PCs 5.7%

[Hatman 🍁]

Looks like those condos really aren't that NDP friendly. But the Toronto Island folk still love the NDP!

[MaxQue]

Looks like those condos really aren't that NDP friendly. But the Toronto Island folk still love the NDP!

Well, it's fitting than to go there, you must take the ferry at the "Jack Layton Ferry Terminal".

[adma]

Though even 64.3% is "low" by Islands standards--presumably the Greens bit a big chunk of that.

Well, yes--in places like central Etobicoke, Forest Hill, the Willowdale-into-Scarborough axis, it'd appear that they won more whole neighbourhoods than "spot polls".  (Wonder if that's a reflection of Wynne's leftward tack or Hudak's more "economically-based" platform)

And these blue blobs look more impressive on a map.

But they still would've been more "red-infused" in 2011--seems like a mild token weakening of the "Paul Martin Liberal" base that felt more at ease under McGuinty....

[adma]

Incidentally, Toronto Island in 2011 was 77.40% NDP, 13.70 Liberal, 5.48% Green, 3.42% PC.

[King of Kensington]

Looks like those condos really aren't that NDP friendly. But the Toronto Island folk still love the NDP!

Unfortunately for the NDP Toronto Island is just 1 poll.

Breakdown by the city's (larger sized) demographic neighborhoods, which perhaps is a more "apples" comparison.

Dovercourt (pt.):  NDP 45.3%, Liberals 38.4%, Greens 7.2%, PCs 6.4%
Annex: Liberals 47.3%, NDP 28.5%, PCs 11.6%, Greens 9.4%
Palmerston (pt.):  NDP 42.7%, Liberals 39.6%, Greens 8.6%, PCs 7%
University:  Liberals 43.4%, NDP 31.9%, Greens 13.8%, PCs 8.8%
Trinity Bellwoods: Liberals 45.8%, NDP 37.3%, PCs 7.9%, Greens 6.9%
Kensington-Chinatown:  Liberals 47.5%, NDP 33%, PCs 9.8%, Greens 6.8%
Bay Street Corridor (pt.):  Liberals 52.3%, NDP 20.9%, PCs 20.2%, Greens 4.1%
Waterfront and the Island (pt.):  Liberals 46.9%, PCs 24%, NDP 22.4%, Greens 4.8%
Niagara:  Liberals 48.1%, NDP 31.2%, PCs 15.3%, Greens 5.3%

There is also a portion of Liberty Village west of (Atlantic Ave.) that falls in "South Parkdale" but that's a really small area.

And by municipal ward:

Ward 19:  Liberals 44.7%, NDP 36.7%, PCs 10.5%, Greens 6.2%
Ward 20:  Liberals 47.2%, NDP 28%, PCs 14.7%, Greens 7.6%

[Hatman 🍁]

Wards 14, 27 and 28 also have bits in Trinity-Spadina, but I guess they're too small to matter.

[Hatman 🍁]

What makes Palmerston so and Christie Pits so NDP friendly? Is it because they're less Chinese than the rest of the riding?

[King of Kensington]

I'm not exactly sure either - but the NDP vote really held up in the Bloor-Ossington area or what we can call the Christie Pits/Dufferin Grove zone, in both Trinity-Spadina and Davenport ridings.  Not sure if there's a "demographic" explanation.  Or why it is less NDP south of College or Dundas.

The heavy Chinese presence centered on Dundas drops off at about Grace, yet we don't see any shift at that point.

Speaking of the Chinese vote, the swing was quite dramatic if you look at polls that are virtually all Chinese like 418 and 438 (or is evident looking at the result for Kensington-Chinatown).  They were voting NDP in 2011 but they came out in much larger numbers to vote for Han Dong this time.

[Hatman 🍁]

Hmm, I guess you're right about the Chinese vote. Here is a map Krago made showing the Chinese and Portuguese populations in Toronto: https://151aceea-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/kragomaps/pdfs/DowntownTO_MT_Map.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cqJxKNsQXuxvAzz7XdiMCRtil1Jg2f4SzTUkPu4nHLFnbeeibfmWDBQilIhSufm7eXyyumlEV1Z6NeKOlckh3UNAmzUfvy70m-rlZl-cHG1EStxXgKteTaYIKMY7rtfPvMnNsTKFwCH9KCVDd0kVba5oUx-5JIMNPvh73kBn4ZdANhnqM-xF4O83Y5bjr8I1bSh5HE1aydF0-FaWfrck24e4Px7ZMI4qXVR_soWiaVjbySdmjg%3D&attredirects=0

The correlation isn't strong.

[King of Kensington]

If anything, the moderate gentrification of Davenport has helped the NDP.  Cash (a musician/journalist) and Schein (a social worker/community organizer) are very much representative of the "new" Davenport, appealing to the young, educated but not particularly rich demographic working in the arts and culture, public service, etc.

One pattern I see in Davenport is the NDP vote is strongest where the Portuguese presence is lower.  Note that the area around the Drake and Gladstone zone is actually more Portuguese than around Bloor and Ossington/Dovercourt.  I noted in an earlier post that the highest-SES census tract in Davenport is not the Drake/Gladstone tract but south of Bloor between Dovercourt and Ossington (call it Bloorcourt, or Concord-Delaware or whatever).  Though why the NDP vote held up all along that Christie Pits/Dufferin Grove zone, I don't know.  

[adma]

I'm also wondering if there's a "Mike Layton vs Adam Vaughan" explanation here, i.e. Marchese benefitting from a mun-prov "team effort" in the NW polls...

Come to think of it, that may explain things elsewhere, too, i.e. Davenport now being all-Liberal municipally, or MMMcM being "non-affiliated" in Beaches-E York, while Parkdale-HP is completely NDP.  (Doesn't explain Toronto Centre, though, which is also all-NDP municipally, even if KWT's loosened her affiliations lately)

[politicallefty]

What exactly makes Toronto Centre so Liberal? It appears to be the case in both federal and provincial elections that the Liberals perform very strongly there and the NDP is considerably weak. Looking at the 2011 federal election shows that riding to be an anomaly. Even then, the NDP couldn't hold the Liberals down to a single-digit margin. It would seem to me that that kind of seat should really be an NDP stronghold. And yet, in this provincial election, the NDP finished behind even the PCs (even looking past the NDP's rather poor performance in Toronto).

(Interestingly, as an American, I've actually heard of current Toronto Centre MP Chrystia Freeland prior to her being elected to that seat. She's appeared quite a few times on Bill Maher, most recently in January.)

As far as the provincial result, it doesn't look that surprising to me. The OLP seems to have a very strong leader in Kathleen Wynne. From what I've seen of her, she seems to be extremely likable, which should never be underestimated. I watched her victory speech and I found her performance to be very impressive. (I actually didn't know she was a lesbian until that speech when she pulled her wife on stage.) It's only too bad she isn't in federal politics, as I'd really like to see her be the Prime Minister of Canada.

[adma]

What exactly makes Toronto Centre so Liberal? It appears to be the case in both federal and provincial elections that the Liberals perform very strongly there and the NDP is considerably weak. Looking at the 2011 federal election shows that riding to be an anomaly. Even then, the NDP couldn't hold the Liberals down to a single-digit margin. It would seem to me that that kind of seat should really be an NDP stronghold. And yet, in this provincial election, the NDP finished behind even the PCs (even looking past the NDP's rather poor performance in Toronto).

Rosedale (and north-of-Bloor in general) skews the picture; it also has a way of dragging the rest of the seat into the Liberal fold, even in places where it's not altogether "NDP-incompatible".  (St. Paul's has the same effect on west-of-Bathurst, as does Vancouver-Quadra on whatever Kitsilano-ish zones.)