Ontario 2014 (June 12th)

[lilTommy]

Hatman: What's changed? My guess was she'd abstain, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Why wouldn't Horwath want an election? She has everything to gain and very little to lose - every single solitary poll over the last two years shows Ontario NDP support to be higher than in the 2011 election and that she is the most well-liked leader in Ontario. She has been winning byelections all over ontario in three cases leapfrogging from third to first place. Also, right now the Ontario Liberals are in trouble over the gas plant scandal etc...why give Kathleen Wynne a year to put more distance between herself and McGuinty.

There may be reasons i am not aware of why Horwath might not want an election now - but I cannot imagine what those reasons are - unless the NDP wants another year to raise more money.

The problem for the NDP is that the Liberals keep putting huge parts, or mostly-similar planks of the ONDP's platform into the budget... well first the OLP rails against them, but in the end they put them in the budget.
The NDP isn't in any rush to go to the polls for what's been stated and some other things like the fact that there hasn't been a poison pill YET in the budget, so they would be blamed for any new election that no one says they want, I could see them abstain again too rather then defeat if only to make Hudak look even worse   The NDP continues to look good and perform well in the House and in polls and by-elections (the longer they wait till an election the more time to fortify those ridings for the NDP) why would they risk this continued improvement and growth unless they were forced to?
My hope is next year since we also have Municipal elections in October;
BUT it might be in the NDP advantage to go this year; next year is also a Federal election where the Liberals are expected to do better then 11, that might have a trickle-down effect on any Ontario election in 2015 unless it's held before the Federal one.
So far this poll is an outlier since the NDP have never really surpassed the Tories yet I don't think?... But it would be interesting to see the dynamics of the next minority if the OLP won and the NDP was the opposition

[lilTommy]

Will a tax hike on 150k+ be enough for Horwath?

The other things mentioned are increasing taxes on tobacco and aviation fuel and an increase for public support workers... If that's all that's in the budget, the NDP won't vote against it, I would hope not.
Horwath wants to see the "fiscal blueprint"? not sure if that means the full budget and all the details; but at worst I could see the NDP abstain as they have previously allowing it to pass.

[lilTommy]

LFP on SW.

The poll results are... well if true, I would be terribly excited!: NDP 46% - PC 28% - OLP 18% - Now, take with a grain of salt right since online news polls are notoriously terrible; I suspect the NDP & PCs are much closer and the OLP to be doing better but still in third.

mileslunn - As things are now; I generally agree, But candidates will play a factor as well as we see who wins nominations, they can bring a 5-10% name-swing with them. Ridings like Windsor West for the NDP (running Gretzky... a trustee), London North Centre (battle! two city Councillors NDP & PC against a high profile yet very scandal plagued cabinet minister) can add points on name alone.

[lilTommy]

Forum, projected

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

[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

[lilTommy]

Why is the NDP all of a sudden popular in Southwestern Ontario? Outside of Windsor, it's not exactly traditional NDP territory. Perhaps it's the economy?

I think that's part of it, the economy is much more manufacturing based even in the smaller cities, last election the NDP performed rather well, breaking through the 20-25 in most ridings (I'm ok to be correct with actual #s) and had a number of strong candidates, also the success of the NDP in winning all 4 of the by-elections, Andrea has been focusing huge effort in this region.
The NDP has a history there going back to 1990 (but i guess that can be factor out as a "fluke"); even before that the NDP has a history in the urban areas as you mentioned like Windsor-Essex, but also Cambridge, Brantford, Niagara... You have to go back to the 40's to the CCF days when they used to win Waterloo, Wellington and Lambton area seats.

[lilTommy]

VoteCompas is back http://www.cbc.ca/elections/ontariovotes2014/votecompass
seems odd, some Federal questions like Euthanasia were listed.

NDP - 80%
GRN - 74%
OLP - 71%
PC  - 33% (Ha! that much!)
... I'm more Economic Left & Social Liberal


Also... Can the NDP win? memories of 90, the NDP surprised most and won... anything can happen Also, anyone have polling from the 90 election?

[lilTommy]

Today's roundup.

Star says Horwath's bumbling, compares her to Ford on populism and gravy train.

Boy the Toronto Star is really in "campaign mode" now - Regg Cohn in particular doesnt even make the slightest pretence to being fair - his columns literally read like they were ghost written by the Liberal war room. This is such a total hatchet job on Andrea Horwath - big deal if she didn't have a bus for the first two of the unofficial campaign. Ontario election writs are dropped on Wednesday's and I'm sure the NDP was caught slightly off-guard by Wynne announcing the election last Friday - 5 days before it could legally start - in the overall scheme of things - so what? Then he goes on to accuse Horwath of not saying how she would pay for her promises - well fair enough but his beloved Kathleen Wynne just brought in a budget with BILLIONS of dollars worth of expensive commitments and no way to pay for any of them other than jacking up the deficit - that doesn't seem to bother him at all.

I went on a huge rant about his factual errors... (Andrea did use the incorrect verbage but quickly corrected herself about the transit P3s) also saying the NDP wants a scarborough subway is incorrect since on record the NDP has prioritized the Relief line then electrification of Pearson-Union... and that he has failed to call out Wynne for her Budget like you mention which is missing, oh i don't know more then half the funds it needs to pay for it.
Also Wynne's new add against the NDP has a bold lie (NDP doesn't support ORPP).. in fact it was an NDP idea, and the only parties ever to have voted against it was the OLP and PCs.

[lilTommy]

Any commentary about the NDP's bold "false front-wrap" on today's Toronto Sun?



Interesting strategy, but it continues the NDP framing itself with populist rhetoric.

Is it unfair of me for thinking yet more negatively of the NDP for patronizing that rag with their business?

As we've discussed in this thread, there's very few NDP-friendly papers, especially in Ontario. The Toronto Start for one has been way more critical of the NDP than the Sun.

My beef is that ads like these are deceitful, but she's taken a page out of Christy Clark's play book, so maybe it will work? It's quite ballsy for sure. Don't count me as one of those people upset with the populist rhetoric, so I'm liking how the campaign is going, even if it's stagnant at the moment.

The NDP was using False fronts during the by-elections too in the Metro's I believe for Niagara Falls and London West no?. It's a concentrated effort to win over Voters in particular regions (like the North and SW) as well as those who are the more working-class kitchen-table kind of voters (again those more working class industrial/resources dominated areas) who are indeed motivated by pocket book issues like Hydro and Insurance, also explains some of the NDPs focus on tax credits (Jobs, investments and now at-home care) who are not particularly tied to any party.

This was on the Sun, but EVERYONE is covering it, the CBC, The Star all have articles about it, while the other parties haven't got much coverage of their media campaigns (other then the ads). The worry (still) is that their progressive base (mostly in the cities) will stay home or worse, vote Liberal. The platform is released today, I'm sure hoping it has something for us (the more big idea progressives)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-votes-2014/ndp-sun-wrap-ad-targets-conservative-voters-1.2649842

[lilTommy]

Campaign specific comment - I'm noticing the NDP is focusing very heavily in York West, Horwath has been in the riding by my count at least 3 times, probably done in conjunction with York South-Weston, Ferreira was late to the game but now i'm seeing a push there too. (Tom Rakocevic has been seen on the news each time). I know the NDP did well in 11 - 30% well, but Sergio is still running? perhaps there is something on the ground there?

[lilTommy]

I'm also wondering if a lot of the PC "likely vote" is heavily weighted in seats where they typically already have high turnouts and massive margins--the Nepean-Carleton types of seats IOW...

Yes, I think this is part of the problem for the Tories, they rake in huge margins in some seats where they don't need the vote; The NDP to some degree has the same problem, used to be worse I think, now they seem to be be spreading around the vote slightly better.
This is how Liberals win, the old saying is "a mile wide, inch thick" their vote is thinner in each riding they tend to win (of course they have their strongholds too) but across the province its rather consistent so they have won seats by slim margins

[lilTommy]

Merely watching the debate my take is:
Wynne - C score - She was terrible, i mean a train wreck would have been better to watch, I was so awkward for her during her first opening statement and debate. But she improved, she got more comfortable and landed a number of solid hits mostly against Hudak who didn't really have much of a comeback for them. But I've seen Wynne perform better, I was shocked at how overall poor she did. If you were a Liberals you should have just tunned in at about 7-715, before that was a disaster.
Hudak - C score - trying to be impartial but I detest the mans politics, but he came across more personable but still not the most likable, he made a number of condescending comments AND hilariously ironic ones (I have a love of math!) He made some good points and tried to against Wynne who was the real target, but got socked by Andrea (voted 97% with Liberals you should own half the mistakes... math again ) but she blasted him with "In the past three years you've accomplished nothing" (paraphrasing). He was not quick on the draw and had no answer for his bad math plan. But no big mistakes really just creepy as usual
Horwath - B score - my best attempt at being impartial. She actually performed the best within the debates, she was eager(or call it aggressive) she was definitely coached on comebacks, I felt no one got a good jab at her, she was quick to be fiery back, especially with Wynne who often was looking very frustrated. She was also the funniest and had the best one-liners, mostly against Hudak, but was very much about "you have another option but these two, etc" But she was weak when it was the statements part which is odd since to me that would be the easiest, perhaps that's not her comfort zone, the closing statement was mangled and went in circles almost as bad as Wynne's opening. Dippers should have changed the channel before the closing statements really.
No clear winner, I'd say an overall tie with Horwath-Hudak but Wynne lost an opportunity to make this a two horse race, Horwath was too much for her in this debate. I think each party can take a win out of the debates though

[lilTommy]

EKOS has 41/33 OLP.

You're not even going to report NDP numbers now?

EKOS has the NDP at 21.5%.

thank you link? any regional's?

[lilTommy]

Since we've posted endorsements; Sudbury Star, guessing one of if not the biggest Northern paper... endorses the NDP, actually a lot of info on the NDP's northern plans are mentioned, things that haven't really been talked about down south (they all sound so tepid!)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2014/06/10/editorial-the-ndp---for-now

[lilTommy]

Such a mixed night for the NDP; great wins like Oshawa (with a rather no-name candidate at that) and expected wins like WW and Sudbury... but that is a trade off with the loss in Toronto. Horwath might face a leadership review but won't resign, there will be a lot of in fighting at the Prov.Exec I can already see it.

The party made a mistake by going all in Populist and not more mixed traditional Social democratic-Populist which could have totally been done!, That at least would have kept the base, the more left leaning in TO within the NDP camp, might have saved Beaches at least... AND the Liberals ran a massive anti-NDP, strategic vote in the city that lured the more urban voter who was SCARED to no end of the PCs, the Liberals wanted to punish Andrea since they would have won a majority without the TO wins... I'm slightly bitter . Anyone who says Wynne didn't want this election is playing dumb

Disaster for the PCs; but it was to be seen, if they had not run such a slash'n burn campaign they would have possible won.
Notice the map? the Liberals/NDP won all the seats along the Golden Horseshoe, the GTHA and those around it like Brant, Cambridge, Northumberland-Quinte except one Whitby-Oshawa (Elliott held that on her own). SO the Liberals won because of the Suburbs and TO.

[lilTommy]

One of my friends across the river is surprised that Windsor West, which had been a long Liberal stronghold went to the NDP.

Not a surprise result, and it does have an NDP history.

Anyways, I wouldn't say the NDP campaign was a mistake. They took their downtown elite voters for granted, but made up for them by winning over populist voters. The next goal is to bridge the two sides.

Yup, that's exactly what i was saying I just think it could have happened this time around. Lesson learned, DO NOT take the Urban-left for granted.

[lilTommy]

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario_election/2014/06/12/ontario_election-party_performance_2014.html?cq_ck=1402676247420

A Breakdown of how strong the parties did... you can see the trends;
NDP strong seconds in SW and dominating much of the North and scattering throughout the GTHA. Liberals dominated in the GTHA, strong seconds through central and east
PCs very consistently strong/moderate in all rural regions

Toronto NDPers got played: http://nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=198460&fb_action_ids=10102639174385452&fb_action_types=og.likes

[lilTommy]

But Hatman, the NDP lost seats in TORONTO!  Who cares about Windsor or Sudbury or Oshawa?

Oh yeah, the centre of the universe. I forgot that one seat in Toronto is more important than 10 elsewhere.

For me it was the shock of losing ridings that have been held since 99 by the NDP, and before the current boundaries, were NDP going back to the 60s-70s ... and my own darn riding! Trinity-Spadina

[lilTommy]

I agree.  They made the strategic decision that to win back the "working class" they had to run to the right and appeal to them with populist planks like tax cuts.  A Toronto Star/group of 34 conspiracy is not to blame, it was their strategic choice to sacrifice Marchese, Prue and Schein. 

Which was totally avoidable... they party only needed to include a couple of big ideas within the platform that would appeal to the TO base, that would have balanced the party out, saved at least Beaches, possibly Davenport... Trinity-Spadina would have been much closer. I floated ideas like putting the 407 back under public ownership (revenue tools without creating "new" taxes) OR include more language and policy around Social Justice. I had a friend who didn't vote NDP because there was no mention of OSDP and poverty (He had previously run for the NDP)
... a couple Rabble articles

Should have run as New Democrats: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2014/06/ontario-election-ok-didnt-really-work-%E2%80%A6-can-we-get-back-to-being

Liberals were lucky: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/gerry-caplan/2014/06/liberals-were-lucky-so-was-ontario#.U5tdA-2AQSU.facebook

[lilTommy]

Marchese blames "strategic voting" for his loss but concedes that the ONDP campaign didn't resonate in Toronto very well

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/long-time-ndp-mpp-marchese-blames-loss-on-strategic-voting/article19176432/#dashboard/follows/

He's right; one of the main reasons the campaign didn't resonate we've already talked about are waffling urban-progressives who like Wynne, like big social investment ideas and were scared out of their mind of Hudak... add that with the overtly anti-NDP campaign run by the Star (which included mis-quoting and bold face lies) and Andrea being more on the Populist side then Progressive (although a number of reviews showed the NDP plan more progressive) just ate into the NDP too much for it to bear.
"Condos" aren't uniform as mentioned already; I live in once and rent, i'd say upwards of 25% of condo's are rental units. They are a mix of DT workers who are finance yes and vote Liberal/PC... NDP based on Candidate like Chow (tend to go with the popular trends, like Trudeau god I hope not but) but also Students, and a mix middle income working folk like myself who can't afford to buy a house and are saving, or those who buy condos since they can be half the price of a home. The "Intelligentsia" NDP, the professionals are one group who look to have either not voted or went Liberal as well... I'd like to see the poll maps of TO, to see where the vote stuck.

[lilTommy]

Its interesting that the NDP seems to have supplanted the Liberals as the option of choice for most Visible Minorities... albeit more recent immigrants, while the Tories dominated the Immigrants who have been here longer.
I'm surprised the NDP did that well with Catholics, must be the Quebec vote? seeing that the NDP dominated with the Non-Religious, seems a weird juxtaposition

[lilTommy]

The unofficial poll-by-poll results were released today on the Elections Ontario website.

http://wemakevotingeasy.ca/en/general-election-results.aspx

Here's the first poll map:

Thank You!
Very telling... First in Trinity-Spadina the NDP did win some condo land polls, looks like half a dozen, now take out the Community housng polls they won, and probably 2-3 condo polls were won by the NDP, only really won over the Little Italy-Palmerston and Christie Pitts area. They lost the University lands (North Centre of the riding) and the Hipster land, which they needed to hold those areas to offset the North East corner closer to Yorkville and the overall condo land in the south who lean Liberal. Nothing pretty here for the NDP, but not a total loss, the University-chinatown-hipster area is winnable. The By-election will be telling to see what the NDP holds vs the provincial.
Beaches - well obvious this one, Prue held on to East York but not enough to offset the lose of Beaches which trended Liberal in 2011, he had held the Upper Beaches in 2011 but losing it now cost him the riding
Davenport - Schein was the reverse of Trinity lost the Wallace-Emerson/Junction area which he needed to hold since the liberals were already dominant North of St.Clair but held on in the marginally hipster Brockton and Dufferin Grove area... north of Dundas he won, which is more working class while south is the more hipster gentrificated area we know

Parkdale-High Park - it was all Parkdale for DiNovo, she lost any poll she had won in the High Park and Swansea area but opposite to Schein won in the Junction area.
Danforth - Tabuns was lucky he lost all of Riverdale, the wealthier area at any rate, and the west Danfroth, but held Leslieville and Riverside

AMAZING Krago ... when you get some free time, what does Brampton/Mississauga look like? the NDP seemed to have been polling well in Brampton

[lilTommy]

The Oshawa win looks even more impressive mapped out...

Marchese and Prue speak out, Basically the party wasn't ready to go, not expecting Wynne to hit the button so soon (should have made demands and force the Liberals to say no... but 20/20 eh), they also rightly point out the Toronto is full of swing Progressives, who pocketbook issues don't play as well as big idea issues... also hurts when the media is lambasting you as right-wing when your pretty much not
... Prue shows how fickle Torontians are and how the Liberals game plan won: "(Prue) said he went door-knocking in two polls before the Liberals tabled their left-leaning budget on May 1, asking if the NDP should reject it. “They said do it,” he recalled. “But once we did, people said, ‘How could you bring the government down? You’re risking Hudak.’ ”

It goes back to my feelings that it was just a little too populist focused for Toronto... and yes the city (old city) is different from much of the rest of the province.

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/06/19/ndp_went_too_far_right_and_wasnt_ready_for_election_defeated_veterans_say.html?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=twitterfeed

[lilTommy]

Wow, a whole 7 polls! That is quite surprising.

Sadly the NDP lost almost 8% vs their 2011 vote, at the expense of the Greens and Liberals

[lilTommy]

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).

I assume that is due to Northern ontario having one less seat federally - but if Ontario opts to keep the extra seat in the North - then then NDP would be at 21, right? I imagine Brampton East is clearly NDP but what about Brampton Centre or Brampton North?

Based on this election, Brampton North is the best bet, there is a huge concentration of polls in the NE corner of current Brampton-Springdale that could swing it NDP and losses large Liberal polls in the south.

Also... surprisingly given the NDP crumble in Toronto, Shan in Scarborough Rouge River held most of his vote, only losing about 4% highly noticeable when you map it compared with Scar.Southwest which was their other target, losing 7% and not winning any polls (looks like)