Ontario 2018 election

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Pollara:

NDP 43% (up 5)
PCs 32% (down 5)
Liberals 17% (down 1)

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-macleans-pollara-ontario-election-poll-the-ndp-lead-keeps-growing/

This is real. People are saying NDP = No Doug Party!!!

Let's see if another poll will back this up. If this result was accurate, I assume that we would be seeing Mainstreet riding polls absolutely crazy with orange colors, and we certainly are not seeing that.  So color me sceptical for now.

Riding polls in BC generally overstated BC Liberal support based on what you would expect from the polls produced. Green and NDP support was also understated in some ridings.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Not a Liberal partisan but am predicting that, assuming the Liberals are higher than 22% provincially, Del Duca retains his seat.

Not so sure about that - the federal Liberals got 25% in Ontario in 2011 and they still got creamed in Vaughan.

My point is - I would be surprised if even 5% of voters will put the question of who will succeed Kathleen Wynne as leader of the OLP into consideration when they vote.  And all of those people would be diehard Liberals.

Even with the Liberal vote % rising I wouldn't say their vote is that efficient anyway. Their consistently third and below 30% (onsider they lost a lot of ground here in 2011 when they finished 1st with 34.84%) in Toronto and well back in third in most other regions. Unless the Liberals can rise up in the polls above 25% or concentrate their vote well I think they may have trouble winning more then 10-11 seats.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Forum out with a new poll which shows a wild PC-NDP swing

PC 39% (+6)
NDP 35% (-12)
Liberals 19% (+5)

Forum seat model shows PC winning 77 seats to the NDP 41 seats and 6 for the Liberals.

http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/braun-doug-fords-pcs-inch-ahead-in-new-poll

H+K strategies shows the NDP in the lead.

NDP 39% (+7)
PC 37% (-1)
Liberals 19% (-4)
Green 6% (+6)
http://hkinsights.ca/research-results-a-hold-your-nose-and-vote-election/

[Pragmatic Conservative]

What’s odd is it seems Mainstreet is the only one that claims the Liberals are increasing while most of the other pollsters have them stagnant or falling.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Hatman are you starting to see a similar OLP rebound as Mainstreet is seeing over the last couple of days?

[Pragmatic Conservative]

It may be a case of too little too late, but we will see. She should have done it at the debate, as I suggested.

Still, I can actually see a path for success for her. She is counting that there are enough people who dislike Doug Ford more than they dislike her (which is true) and who would, if they knew the Liberals were gone anyway, vote differently.

Except most voters didn't think the Liberals had that much of a chance of getting re-elected anyway. Like how many of those voters really thought the Liberals were going to win anyway?

The NDP tried a similar tactic in 2001 in BC and it didn't help them much so not sure why it would work for Wynne.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Uh, West Vancouver, North Vancouver? Port Coquitlam, etc?

Vancouver has lots of high income outer burbs. North and West Van in particular have massively outsized influence. Richmond is even starting to take on those characteristics now.

North Shore, Burnaby/New Westminster and Richmond are really more inner than outer suburbs. But the North Shore is not really big enough to be a sinkhole anyway representing a serious impediment to the NDP's competitiveness province-wide.

The NDP also holds one of the 4 North Shore seats anyway. What is really hurting the Ontario NDP is a lack of a Vancouver eastern suburb (Burnaby/New Westminster/Coquitlam) in the Toronto region.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

This allows them to vote their preference in ridings where Liberals were strong. Contrary to others, I actually think it will strengthen the Liberal vote in places like Ottawa Centre, Spadina Ft. York, Willowdale, Eglinton Lawrence and even places like Beaches East York. Will it be enough? Who knows.

But strong relative to *whom*?  In only two of those seats are the Tories historically the primary opposition.

Actually, I think the prime seat Wynne has in mind is her own--it's just her luck that she represents the ultimate "strategic left = Liberal" riding...

Let me be clear - Wynne is not doing this to help the "progressive vote" or the NDP - she is doing this to help the Liberal Party (as she should). And the Liberals have a better chance of keeping their previous margins if the voters believe that the party has already been punished. The fact that most of those seats are in areas where the main rivalry is with the NDP rather than the PC is just luck of the draw. And if some Liberals do vote for the NDP and help them beat PC in some seats, that still indirectly helps the Liberals as they will be the kingmaker in a minority situation.

As I said, this is a good move for OLP, but she should have done it a few days ago.

From the NDP point of view, this is still good as they may lose a few close seats to the Liberals, but with Liberal voter support, they will win a few against the PC and potentially get to a minority government position. As we discussed a couple of days ago, I do not see a path for an NDP majority, so this would be their best scenario.

Except most people that are voting liberal probably are part of the ~24% of Ontario voters that approve of Wynne so it’s not like they think the OLP should be punished. It’s also unlikely that many people that disapprove of Wynne are suddenly going to change how they would vote based on a Wynne concession. Wynne should have just defended her record and gone after the ~24% of voters who approve of her.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

In all this talk about Toronto vs Vancouver; maybe a more pertinent point re NDP strength vs weakness might be Ottawa vs Victoria.  (Though of course, one might counter that with SW Ontario vs the BC Interior.)

Where might Hamilton stand re such equivalencies?

I think the whole niagara region is a good stand in for VI actually. Just like VI you have a couple of pockets of conservative strength but the region is still generally fairly left leaning.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

In all this talk about Toronto vs Vancouver; maybe a more pertinent point re NDP strength vs weakness might be Ottawa vs Victoria.  (Though of course, one might counter that with SW Ontario vs the BC Interior.)

Where might Hamilton stand re such equivalencies?

I think the whole niagara region is a good stand in for VI actually. Just like VI you have a couple of pockets of conservative strength but the region is still generally fairly left leaning.

Mostly just Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Comox. The areas where all the people from Alberta come to when they retire.  (Part joke, partly true.)

Conservatives (and B.C Liberals) keep hoping that the unionized resource workers in and around central and northern Vancouver Island (extraction and processing) will turn from the NDP, but it hasn't happened so far in any great numbers.

Not to go to far off topic but it was so ironic that the VI (Courtney-Comox) directly cost Christy Clark her majority even though she made a big play for the island vote including an island specific platform and everything.       

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Mainstreet is going to release a number of riding polls in what should be highly competitive districts today:
Thunder Bay—Atikokan (update)
Humber River Black Creek (update)
Don Valley North (update)
Toronto St Pauls (update)
Scarborough Guildwood
Ottawa Vanier
Scarborough Rouge Park
Orleans

Also will be released today but should be easy PC Gain
Scarborough Agincourt
Burlington
Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Pollara

PC 37% (+5)
NDP 37% (-6)
Liberal 20% (+3)
Green 5% (-)
Other 1% (-1)

https://www.pollara.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Pollara_ONElxn2018-MethoDataBrf_May30-Jun2.pdf

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Ugh. How many of those Liberal voters would've switched to the NDP had they not voted ahead of time? There was a lot of this in the 2011 federal election. Costed the NDP at least one seat in Quebec (Westmount) from what I recall.

One of the many reasons I would prefer people not vote ahead of time.

Though to be fair:  had the results shifted by a point and a half or so in three Toronto ridings in 2015, you could switch the party labels there.  (And advance polls made the difference in a number of Quebec NDP "saves" that year, too.)

How acurate traditionally are these polls of early voting anyway?
Abacus seems to have the Liberals on average 3% higher then other pollsters so its  possible their advanced voting is overestimating the Liberals.

I also imagine as advanced voting is a small portion of the electorate and only a small portion of their sample claimed to have voted early those early voting numbers would come with a huge margin of error.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Quito Maggi is tweeting their seeing significant movement in the polls tonight. This probably means the NDP pick up a point from the Liberals or something.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Seems like the liberals may be recovering in eastern Ontario which likley means finishing above 30% in Ottawa. Mainstreet in their public poll has them neck and neck with the NDP and not too far back from the PC. I could definitely see them holding Ottawa-Vanier plus Ottawa-South and maybe Ottawa West—Nepean and Orléans. The PC also don't seem to be improving much from 2016 while most of the movement is from Liberals migrating to the NDP.

In Toronto the Liberals seems stuck in third and well below 30% in general and based on past results that probably suggests only winning 3-5 seats.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

I'm seeing a pattern with these Ottawa and uptown TO "John Tory Liberal" seats.  Some sort of coherent OLP base.

Do you think will see any significant amount of Harper11/Wynne18 vorters in Toronto?

[Pragmatic Conservative]

If there's a polling error in which direction do you think it'll be?

Probably the PCs at 40% seeing a few polls are showing pc momentum. Though I actually think theirs a decent chance the NDP vote will be more efficient then polling models are showing. I think the Liberals will likely beat their polling average by a couple points because their the incumbent party.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Final poll from Ipsos

PC 39% (+2)
NDP 36% (+2)
Liberal 19% (-3)

https://globalnews.ca/news/4256612/ontario-election-ipsos-poll-doug-ford-pc-majority/

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Well, Mainstreet is avoiding the herding. They now have the PCs up by 6. lol...

It will be interesting to see what Forum comes up with in their inevitable final poll. Normally I'd expect the IVR polls (EKOS, Forum and Mainstreet) to be very similar...but maybe not. One thing I have heard from some pollsters who now prefer online panels is that the people who respond to IVR polls (which btw have very very low response rates) tend to older, whiter and angrier and more opinionated than the overall population, but who knows

Mainstreet also seems to be showing the Liberal much higher then other pollsters.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

They're also way off the internal polls that we've been doing in the same ridings.

Are you going to be releasing any riding polls with the final poll tonight?

[Pragmatic Conservative]

EKOS

PC 39.1% (+0.5%)
NDP 35.1% (+0.2%)
Liberal 18.9% (-0.4%)
Green 4.5% (-1.4%)
Other 2.4% (+1.2%)

http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full_report_june_6_2018c.pdf

[Pragmatic Conservative]

ResearchCo

PC 39% (+1)
NDP 37%(-2)
Liberal 20% (+2)
Green 4% (-)
Other 1% (-)

https://researchco.ca/2018/06/06/ontario-final-2018/

[Pragmatic Conservative]

So I believe do to 90% of voters living in precincts with electronic vote counters we should get results relatively tomorrow night.