Ontario 2011 (6th October)

[Hash]

If the PCs somehow finished third, then I'd laugh my ass off in joy. It would be the best thing to come out of this country since...

Also, today's Nanos showed a similar Liberal surge to 37-38%.

Also - heads up to those who care - I'm working as a returning officer (DRO) on election day, so I won't be online at all on Thursday. I got the ballots today

[Holmes]

I have a feeling Conservatives will over perform in the polls and Liberals will under perform. Remember that Rae won a comfortable majority with only 37% of the vote, with the runners up at 32%. So if the polls are correct we might not be looking at a minority, but maybe a majority, depending on where the numbers are coming from.

[mileslunn]

I think at this point a Tory majority is pretty much out of the picture.  Minority perhaps, in fact I could see McGuinty winning the popular vote but winning fewer seats as pretty much every poll shows the Liberals with a massive lead in Toronto while the neck and neck or some in cases the Tories even a bit ahead or slightly behind elsewhere thus unlike in the last federal election, there doesn't appear to be any region the Tories are racking up huge margins whereas the Liberals still are in Toronto even if their federal cousins no longer are.  Still I would give the Liberals an edge at this point in terms of seats over the Tories and I a Liberal majority albeit weaker one is still possible.

[Hatman 🍁]

I also wont be available on election night, as I will be at the "victory" party. But, I will be tweeting throughout the evening, if anyone has twitter.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

There will be no victory.

Dalton - I hate public transit and cities - McGunity will win another majority.

[mileslunn]

I think with the recent polls it is pretty much a foregone conclusion the Liberals will win the most seats.  It is still possible it will be a Liberal minority although I highly doubt there will be a coalition rather an issue by issue basis.  And the NDP and PCs will probably both win more seats than last time around, although it looks like there is the possiblity of Tim Hudak getting a lower vote percetange than John Tory did which really says a lot about how pathetic a campaign he ran.  He probably will though get a lower share of the popular vote than Ernie Eves did which was not either a particularly good result for the PCs and certainly well below Mike Harris in 1999 or Stephen Harper in 2011 in Ontario which is more the high end for the PCs/Conservatives in Ontario.

[Holmes]

There will be no victory.

Dalton - I hate public transit and cities - McGunity will win another majority.

A Liberal minority would be a victory. NDP would keep Liberals in check for 2 years, until the next election. Especially if the NDP become the opposition. You never know - how low can Hudak go?

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

It's smelling more and more like a Liberal Majority.

[Holmes]

But where are the numbers coming from? That's more important than the actual provincewide numbers. If, for example, the Liberals are "surging" due to people in Toronto and the GTA switching from PC to Liberal, with competition everywhere else in the province, Liberals might not get their majority. Or they might. Results might be wonky.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Projection

LIB 42-58
PC 28-41
NDP 22-27

[mileslunn]

Projection

LIB 42-58
PC 28-41
NDP 22-27

The PC and Liberal numbers are fairly reasonable although I think the NDP is overestimated.  I highly doubt they will outperform their federal counterparts who got 22 seats.  I agree it will be a good night, but 27 seems way too high.  I must say the most recent Angus-Reid poll just makes predicting harder.  Ipsos, Ekos, and Nanos all show the Liberals with a fairly solid lead but Angus-Reid comes out with the Tories slightly ahead.  Probably a rogue poll, but Angus-Reid does have a fairly good repulation for accuracy as does Nanos, so it will be interesting to see who is right.  Certainly if Ekos messes this one up much like the federal one, I suspect their credibility will be shot.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The NDP is under-performing their federal numbers, but so is the largest party. Result = more NDP seats on less NDP votes.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Anyone care to edit this to fit the provincial ridings?

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Also, my projection

[Smid]

Teddy, here you go:



Bigger version in the gallery (Election Maps - International). There are some I've done also that show the difference between the federal and provincial results, but they're not especially useful because they just show what we already know. There's also a blank one in the blank maps gallery.

[Holmes]

Most polls (Nanos, Ipsos, Forum, Ekos) show Liberals quite ahead, with PCs second, NDP third. So I guess I'll just post the interesting outlier.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/44072/tories-edging-liberals-but-ontario-race-could-turn-in-final-hours/

PC - 36%
Lib - 33%
NDP - 26%

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Teddy, here you go:



Bigger version in the gallery (Election Maps - International). There are some I've done also that show the difference between the federal and provincial results, but they're not especially useful because they just show what we already know. There's also a blank one in the blank maps gallery.

I meant my map, with the insets and numbers and names, but ok.

[Hash]

Apparently even Abacus has us ahead. I'm hopeful about all this, but I stand ready to be disappointed.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

If you still think Hudak is going to win, you are crazy. Hudak is not going to win, so cheer up!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So Ontario seems set to return to its usual basic pattern? By which I mean very different patterns of support in Federal and Provincial elections.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I want to be optimistic. I am always ready to a disappointment but it seems Ontarians are about to make the right choice.

[Hash]

Andrew Lister is really stepping up his game. He's littered Innes with a string of 7-8 huge signs and now he's plastered them with stuff like "the Ottawa sh**tizen endorses" or "Rainer Bloess endorses". I'm very happy I didn't vote for Bloess in the last local elections, given how much of a useless rightie scumbag he is.

[Linus Van Pelt]

So Ontario seems set to return to its usual basic pattern? By which I mean very different patterns of support in Federal and Provincial elections.

This is actually kind of complicated, since prior to the 1980's the OLP was basically a rural conservative party, while in the 1990's the voting patterns were actually pretty similar at both levels but the seat results were very different because the provincial PC vote was split federally. So voting for different parties in a parallel ideological space is actually pretty unusual.

I really think that even if McGuinty is held to a minority or even if Hudak narrowly wins, this election is one big own goal by the opposition parties. The conditions were present to replicate the federal result and really send the Liberals into strange-death zone; McGuinty is not well-loved and looked totally underwater in the polls a year ago even when Hudak and Horwath had low name recognition. And the local PC & NDP organizations in Toronto are newly energized by the federal result. But both opposition parties seem like they're actively trying to get anyone who isn't an angry populist to vote Liberal. Their platforms are just basically a random collection of cost-of-living related price interventions with no interesting campaign themes or policy initiatives. It reminds me of that period in spring 2008 when both McCain and Clinton decided that the thing to do was a "gas tax holiday" and Obama pointed out that this was just a dumb gimmick. Certainly I'm not asking for the reverse - a politics so elitist that it underperforms in the manufacturing areas (*cough* Democratic Party *cough*) - but as the recent federal election showed, it's not impossible to carry North Toronto and the farmlands together, nor to carry both the central city and the SW rust belt.

This third line here is the killer, from the recent EKOS poll - it's not an outlier; other subsamples are showing the same thing. (It goes LIB-NDP-PC).

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Today's OLP is the "Big Blue Machine" whereas today's PCO is the OLP of yesteryear.

The NDP, of course, is still the NDP.

[Hatman 🍁]

Andrew Lister is really stepping up his game. He's littered Innes with a string of 7-8 huge signs and now he's plastered them with stuff like "the Ottawa sh**tizen endorses" or "Rainer Bloess endorses". I'm very happy I didn't vote for Bloess in the last local elections, given how much of a useless rightie scumbag he is.

Funny how Bloess and Monette  used to be Liberals.