Ontario 2018 election

[King of Kensington]

Ideally, the "John Tory Liberal" constituency of North Toronto/North York stays Liberal but the Ford municipal vote in Scarborough doesn't really translate into PC votes in the end.

I suppose that's possible.  The Liberals are still AFAIK polling close to 30% in Toronto and I don't think there's been an even drop everywhere.  I suspect their vote has tanked much more in "Ford Nation" (remember that some working class outer TO seats including the one Ford is running in stayed Liberal in the 2011 federally) than in the more well-to-do districts.

[King of Kensington]

But is the Liberal vote more efficient than in the 2011 federal election in Toronto?  We shall see. 

Best case scenario for a "progressive" minded voter I think is the NDP winning everywhere it can but the "John Tory Liberal" vote blocking the PCs in a few seats (or the city being entirely orange and blue while the perfect storm makes up for this in SW Ontario).  Worst case scenario is that the PCs get all the territory Ford won municipally plus the more middle class and well to do outer districts due to vote-splitting. 

I still think the PCs can eke out a majority with a similar or even smaller share of the popular vote than the NDP, unfortunately.

[King of Kensington]

So, if the Liberal vote collapses totally, PCs can get an extra 6 seats here.  Add another 4-5 Scarborough seats and Etobicoke North, and they have a majority.

Unless somehow a 1990-style wave delivers about a dozen or so seats in rural and rurban Ontario to the NDP offsets that.

[King of Kensington]

[With the current PC strength, I doubt NDP can win any purely rural PC-held ridings.  What the NDP could viably do is win over from the smaller PC-held urban/suburban ridings that have eluded them (places like Peterborough, Kitchener Centre, Kitchener South-Hespeler, Cambridge, Sarnia Lambton, Brantford, Chatham Kent Leamington, etc.).  However that still leaves the PCs with a solid 50+ seats (assuming the aforementioned Liberal collapse in TO), before all of the TCTCs are considered.  As I said, NDP will need to go 5-6% ahead of PC AND not have any screw-ups, in order to have a chance of a majority or even a minority government.

Yeah, it's a real stretch to hope these types of seats will put the NDP ahead over the PCs if the PCs are making big gains in the GTA.  Many of the seats you listed above they'd be taking from the Liberals and not the PCs.  

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Can't disagree with what Harden says there.

[King of Kensington]

I've found once a wave starts not much one can do to stop it, the question comes more where it crests so as much as I abhor the idea of an NDP government, I think that is the most likely outcome.  I don't think it will be a blowout either way.  I suspect the difference between the two parties unless polls are massively wrong or something dramatic happens will be fewer than 20 seats.

Unless they're able to concentrate themselves in the "higher professional" constituency like the LibDems have recently, as Filuwaúrdjan has mentioned.  But I don't know if the "too educated to vote Conservative, too bourgeois to vote NDP" vote is enough to keep the Liberals in any riding except St. Paul's.

[King of Kensington]

This is really a fascinating election.

[King of Kensington]

Question for the Ontarians: why does the NDP seem to do better in rural southwestern Ontario than rural eastern Ontario?

In SW Ontario, there's a lot of manufacturing even in ridings thought of as "rural."

[King of Kensington]

It would be kinda hilarious to see the NDP sweep SW Ontario and the PCs sweep Scarborough.

So...how about that?

[King of Kensington]

Just putting this out there:

Fed 2011 Toronto Centre Transposed result...

Lib: 39%
NDP: 36%
Cons: 18%

And this was with Bob Rae, and though Rosedale isn't included in those numbers, it was an election in a riding that included Rosedale which could have changed the dynamic.

[King of Kensington]

Uh oh

http://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/05/25/pc-candidates-accuse-ndp-ignoring-anti-semitism-within-party/

[King of Kensington]

Jewish religion (2011 NHS):

Thornhill  40,710  37.1%
Eglinton-Lawrence  24,405  22%
York Centre  18,870  19%
St. Paul's  14,950  14.7%
Don Valley West  8,735  8.8%
Willowdale  7,180  6.6%
University-Rosedale  6,735  7.1%
Richmond Hill  5,605  5.2%
Aurora-Oak Ridges  5,035  4.8%
Markham-Thornhill  5,030  4.9%

[King of Kensington]

https://innovativeresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IRG36-Tracking-pre-test-Wave-2-.pdf

I really enjoy these Value Clusters:

NDP have increase, increased! there vote among Core Left (52% +5) and Left Liberals (45% +7). Also interesting is that the NDP has seen increase among Business Liberals (24% +4), which also saw a sharp decline for the PCs (29% -8) and Increase for the OLP (43% +6)

Some fiscally prudent business types having second thoughts about Ford?

[King of Kensington]

Apart from University-Rosedale that is a list the 10 LEAST winnable ridings in Ontario for the NDP...and i might add the Jews who live in University-Rosedale (like yours truly :-)) tend to be very progressive and secular and won't give a hoot about this.

The thing is...if you're a progressive Jew the last place you'll want to live is Thornhill!

Basically Toronto's Jewish neighborhoods (except for very tony Forest Hill, or York Mills if that counts) have an Orthodox and/or FSU immigrant character.  

Progressive Jews tend to live in more ethnically mixed areas.

[King of Kensington]

I feel like individual candidates don't swing the vote too much outside their riding unless they do something really awful like the "lake of fire" guy in Alberta. Most people in Canada vote based on the party they want to win, not on local candidates.

Lawton is pretty horrible.

[King of Kensington]

Not that I'm saying it'll matter in the end, but Bay of Quinte is the most likely seat the "poppy" issue will cost the NDP - if there's one.

[King of Kensington]

Ford sure doesn't like this Forum poll

https://twitter.com/JohnLorinc/status/1000098044531036160

[King of Kensington]

I don't see a 1990 type reaction to an NDP victory from business. The Globe and Mail has actually been pretty fair in their reportage this election (they've been far more critical of Ford).

I think the Globe will call for something like Conservative minority and dump Ford.

[King of Kensington]

Do newspaper editorials or Bay Street have any effect on voters? Remember how in the 2015 federal election, virtually the entire print media endorsed the Harper Conservatives? And remember how, in the last days before the 2015 Alberta election, a collection of big oil execs held a press conference warning about the NDP?

Not really.  I think the Star endorsement of the NDP helped them in the GTA a bit though, made it seem like a more "acceptable" option in a lot of areas where they weren't traditionally in contention.

[King of Kensington]

The thing is too most of the Bay St. types don't see a major difference between the Liberals under Kathleen Wynne and the NDP either.  But then they also see Ford as a buffoon.

The Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee seems to express this view:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-what-on-earth-is-the-responsible-ontario-voter-to-do/

[King of Kensington]

Worth a read:

https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/can-the-ndp-break-through-again-in-eastern-ontario

[King of Kensington]

Could Jim Bradley lose?

I think so.  He's never run in an election where the Liberals were the third place party.

[King of Kensington]

Agreed. They need to hope that there is some significant variation in the swing within Toronto. If their Etobicoke/Scarborough vote craters and they only suffer a minor decrease in Don Valley/Old Toronto, they might salvage a resepectable caucus. If they decline evenly, they'll be in Kim Campbell territory.

Yeah, I suspect it's uneven as well.  The Liberals not going to win the city's NW or likely anything in Scarborough this time. The best they can hope for is the "John Tory Liberal" constituency holding out.

[King of Kensington]

I really didn't expect a 1990 style coalition to develop behind the NDP, but the more I'm hearing, the more I think it is the actual easiest path for the NDP to win government.

How many rural and "rurban" seats are winnable when the right-wing vote and the anti-NDP vote is more or less united behind the PCs?  How many do they need realistically to win government?

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, St. Paul's is quite a different creature from St. Andrew-St. Patrick.

St. Paul's contained 46% of St. Andrew-St. Patrick, 44% of Eglinton, 32% of Oakwood and 21% of Dovercourt.  

The Hillcrest-Humewood area of St. Paul's (I grew up there) is very progressive, and would probably be more NDP-friendly in a more favorable riding configuration (or like in today's case, without a popular left-ish Liberal MP/MPP on the ballot like Carolyn Bennett or Eric Hoskins).

St. Andrew-St. Patrick was redistributed as follows: 46% to St. Paul's, 32% to Trinity-Spadina, 16% to Toronto Centre-Rosedale and 6% to Eglinton-Lawrence.

[King of Kensington]

Further to this discussion, here is Global TV's take today:

St. Catharines [PC-NDP] Liberal incumbent Jim Bradley has held this riding since 1977 and despite four decades of ebbs and flows in the Liberal tide, he’s always managed to return to Queen’s Park. This time, though, the anti-Liberal tide may be too deep, even for Bradley. Both the NDP and the PCs, perhaps sensing that change is about to come to St. Catharines, have each sent their leaders to this riding. Wynne has not dropped in. Tory Sandie Bellows is a slightly better bet than New Democrat Jennie Stevens to end Bradley’s long tenure.

Instinctually, I would give the PCs an advantage given that any residual strength Jim Bradley maintains hurts the NDP more.  Though I guess one could counter that with "populism...orange wave...Andrea is the agent of change."