Ontario 2018 election

[Hatman 🍁]

CMAs can't be merged? Didn't Montreal just swallow up Saint-Jean in the last census?

I would imagine that Oshawa's influence on Whitby (even if it is less than Toronto) is playing a major factor.

[Hatman 🍁]

Here is a chart that I've prepared that tries to predict possible outcomes based on PC and NDP polling.

So 4% is the magic number. The NDP needs to win by 4 points. Makes sense.

[Hatman 🍁]

Nothing too surprising, really. Still not good news for the NDP's chances. Have to hope Mainstreet is indeed underpolling them.

[Hatman 🍁]

Nothing too surprising, really. Still not good news for the NDP's chances. Have to hope Mainstreet is indeed underpolling them.

I would say the PCs leading in Kenora-Rainy River (a 55% NDP seat) would be extremely surprising.

Considering I predicted the PCs would win it in the other thread, it is not in the least bit surprising. Greg Rickford, the riding's former MP is the PC candidate. How well did he do in 2011? That's right. We know how well he can do against an orange wave.

[Hatman 🍁]

Today's Mainstreet riding polls are fantastic if you're a Conservative.  The idea of a rural orange wave across Southern Ontario a la '90 (which was far less probable in today's circumstances) looks like a pure fantasy at this point.  Also, the PCs are ahead in Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie.

It's very difficult to think of many PC seats that the NDP are poised to take.

Two points:

1. Northern seats like Kenora have very very large First nation populations often living on reserves and they tend to be very difficult to capture in polls - especially IVR polls

Most of the reserves in that riding are now in Kiiwetinoong.

[Hatman 🍁]

If the Mainstreet riding polls are to be believed, GPR may be the NDP's worst riding in the province.

[Hatman 🍁]

I wonder how much they've incorporated federal numbers in the mix. That would explain the weird numbers.

Oh, and the NDP is targeting Whitby, so their chances are better than a 'cold day in hell'.

Cold day in Saudi Arabia perhaps?

Having lived in Saudi, the two are interchangeable, especially in summer around Dhahran .

As for Whitby, the NDP can target and hope, but then there is reality.  This is from the 2016 Whitby byelection:

Tory candidate Lorne Coe crushed Liberal Elizabeth Roy, 53 per cent to 28 per cent with nearly all polls reporting late Thursday evening. NDP candidate Niki Lundquist trailed with 16 per cent.

The candidates this time around, are - yes you guessed it - for the PC that same Coe and for the NDP that same Lundquist!  You make the conclusions.

Actually, Lundquist *overachieved* relative to pre-byelection polls that saw her flirting with single digits--OTOH her best parts (the Oshawa polls) are gone from the riding.  But still; within the "auto-orbit" of Oshawa, I can see why the NDP might genuinely think of themselves in the running here.

As for Coe--don't think that a "byelection bump" didn't pertain here, yes, even here, and back when the party still seemed "normal" under Patrick Brown.  And *if* we're looking at an overall NDP advantage of 5-10 points and the PCs reduced to Hudak-like numbers or worse (*maybe*)--don't rule out Whitby...

We shouldn't be comparing to by-elections where the NDP often does very poorly if voters view it as a strict Lib-PC race.

[Hatman 🍁]

Just looking at our numbers now. I'm not going to give the topline, but since we probably won't have regional #s out, I can say the NDP have a decent lead in Toronto. They're up 50-24 in central (Liberals in third!) and down 38-40 in the outer region. (margin of error for both regions is around 9).

[Hatman 🍁]

Just looking at our numbers now. I'm not going to give the topline, but since we probably won't have regional #s out, I can say the NDP have a decent lead in Toronto. They're up 50-24 in central (Liberals in third!) and down 38-40 in the outer region. (margin of error for both regions is around 9).

I'm assuming that "central" means Parkdale-High Park, York South-Weston, Davenport, University-Rosedale, Spadina-Fort York, Toronto Centre, Toronto-Danforth, Beaches-East York and St. Paul's and that "outer" means all the Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York seats, but where do you classify Eglinton-Lawrence and Don Valley West?

If the NDP is essentially dead even with the PCs in outer Toronto it would suggest that the NDP would likely win at least a few seats in Scarborough and North York...and if Ford himself were not running Etobicoke North would be a likely pick up

I have Don Valley West and Eglinton-Lawrence in central as well.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Toronto numbers are encouraging for the NDP.  If they're not leading comfortably in the province's largest city it's really hard to see a path to victory for them.  Still depending on how the vote goes, Ford could deny them a few seats that they'd be winning in Scarborough (and of course he almost certainly will in Etobicoke North!) if the PCs had a more "generic" leader.

SW Ontario is proving to be competitive between the PCs and NDP.  So it looks like they'll be splitting the region in terms of seats, with the NDP dominating the cities.

Yup, very positive for the NDP: looking at 2014, the PCs vote is only up (based on polls) by 5% 23%-28%, That can't be enough to take many seats; with the NDP at around 40% seats like Don Valley East are effectively in play since the PC/OLP are splitting the vote enough for the NDP to squeak in 35% or so. But I'm more inclined to say Willowdale and Don Valley North, are going PC, with the NDP/OLP splitting the vote enough.
Etobicoke is hard to say, we don't know what the Ford personal effect is, I hear he is in a very tough fight in Etobicoke North, and sans Ford this seat would be more comfortably in the NDP column.

In the SW (excluding SC the Hamilton-Niagara area) The NDP still need the PCs to drop about 3-5% more to pick up those rural seats similar to 1990; but KWGC metro area is looking really good for the NDP to sweep up OLP seats and PC seats.

If the OLP wins seats up North, it would only be Thunder Bay. But Angus and Mainstreet have the OLP polling at 9% and 12% in the North... I think the TB riding's are lost at this point to the NDP. I'm watching Sault.Ste.Marie and Nipissing to see if the NDP can pick both up from the PCs...

What makes you think that Fedeli would even come close to losing Nipissing, in the current political climate?  If the PC forms government, he is guaranteed a top position there, and he has cross party appeal in North Bay.

Perhaps the recent Mainstreet poll of that riding tipped him off?

[Hatman 🍁]

I certainly love reading about the riding polls by Mainstreet but it should be noted that it is extremely challenging to do riding polls these days - especially in urban ridings - because it is literally impossible to get cell phone numbers at the riding level. That means that if you see a poll of 500 people in St. Paul's (for example) it is a poll of 500 people with directory listed land lines in that riding...there is likely almost no one under the age of 40 in the sample apart from a few millennials living with their parents who happen to pick up the phone. You can weight by age...but its tough when you have such a tiny number of young people in the sample to begin with.

Mainstreet claims that they have figured out a way around this. We are certainly experimenting with a method ourselves, but yeah... extremely difficult.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Toronto numbers are encouraging for the NDP.  If they're not leading comfortably in the province's largest city it's really hard to see a path to victory for them.  Still depending on how the vote goes, Ford could deny them a few seats that they'd be winning in Scarborough (and of course he almost certainly will in Etobicoke North!) if the PCs had a more "generic" leader.

SW Ontario is proving to be competitive between the PCs and NDP.  So it looks like they'll be splitting the region in terms of seats, with the NDP dominating the cities.

Yup, very positive for the NDP: looking at 2014, the PCs vote is only up (based on polls) by 5% 23%-28%, That can't be enough to take many seats; with the NDP at around 40% seats like Don Valley East are effectively in play since the PC/OLP are splitting the vote enough for the NDP to squeak in 35% or so. But I'm more inclined to say Willowdale and Don Valley North, are going PC, with the NDP/OLP splitting the vote enough.
Etobicoke is hard to say, we don't know what the Ford personal effect is, I hear he is in a very tough fight in Etobicoke North, and sans Ford this seat would be more comfortably in the NDP column.

In the SW (excluding SC the Hamilton-Niagara area) The NDP still need the PCs to drop about 3-5% more to pick up those rural seats similar to 1990; but KWGC metro area is looking really good for the NDP to sweep up OLP seats and PC seats.

If the OLP wins seats up North, it would only be Thunder Bay. But Angus and Mainstreet have the OLP polling at 9% and 12% in the North... I think the TB riding's are lost at this point to the NDP. I'm watching Sault.Ste.Marie and Nipissing to see if the NDP can pick both up from the PCs...

What makes you think that Fedeli would even come close to losing Nipissing, in the current political climate?  If the PC forms government, he is guaranteed a top position there, and he has cross party appeal in North Bay.

Perhaps the recent Mainstreet poll of that riding tipped him off?

Is Fedeli behind in that poll?

I haven't seen the polling, I wish, but pay-wall. This is my general impression of what I am hearing, updates on social media from the area.
Also, it's really the next most likely target after SSM in my opinion. You could probably flip a coin between Nipissing and Parry South-Muskoka over which one would go NDP.

Well, Nipissing is actually a majority urban riding (North Bay), so the NDP would definitely have a shot if Fideli wasn't so popular.

Parry Sound-Muskoka is very WASPy/ Old school conservative (but also very rural/small town), so could be a riding turned off of Fordism, but the NDP has no history there. The riding does have a lot of granola hippie types too that typically vote Green, but who might vote NDP this time.  Still though, the NDP has a better shot at Nipissing.

[Hatman 🍁]

So the latest Ekos is out and has it about tied NDP 38.4, PCs 37.9 and Liberals 19.1%...The EKOS polls always have kinda skimpy sample sizes by IVR standards (e.g. n of 1,000 over three days while Mainstreet has n of 2,400)...the marginal cost of adding sample in an IVR poll is so low i wonder why they don't do more

Weirdly, EKOS's report on the poll indicates that they had a poll out around a couple of days ago that showed the NDP at around 41 to the PCs around 37 and the Liberals around 17 (hard to tell exactly) such that this poll actually represents a drop for the NDP and an increase for the PCs and Liberals, but I can't find any record of that poll on their website or anywhere else. Compared to their last public poll, it's an increase for both the NDP and the PCs and a drop for the Liberals, with basically the same gap between the NDP and the PCs (PCs gained a relative 0.2 points).

Showing basically zero age gap is also weird.

Might be our unreleased numbers from Saturday.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Toronto numbers are encouraging for the NDP.  If they're not leading comfortably in the province's largest city it's really hard to see a path to victory for them.  Still depending on how the vote goes, Ford could deny them a few seats that they'd be winning in Scarborough (and of course he almost certainly will in Etobicoke North!) if the PCs had a more "generic" leader.

SW Ontario is proving to be competitive between the PCs and NDP.  So it looks like they'll be splitting the region in terms of seats, with the NDP dominating the cities.

Yup, very positive for the NDP: looking at 2014, the PCs vote is only up (based on polls) by 5% 23%-28%, That can't be enough to take many seats; with the NDP at around 40% seats like Don Valley East are effectively in play since the PC/OLP are splitting the vote enough for the NDP to squeak in 35% or so. But I'm more inclined to say Willowdale and Don Valley North, are going PC, with the NDP/OLP splitting the vote enough.
Etobicoke is hard to say, we don't know what the Ford personal effect is, I hear he is in a very tough fight in Etobicoke North, and sans Ford this seat would be more comfortably in the NDP column.

In the SW (excluding SC the Hamilton-Niagara area) The NDP still need the PCs to drop about 3-5% more to pick up those rural seats similar to 1990; but KWGC metro area is looking really good for the NDP to sweep up OLP seats and PC seats.

If the OLP wins seats up North, it would only be Thunder Bay. But Angus and Mainstreet have the OLP polling at 9% and 12% in the North... I think the TB riding's are lost at this point to the NDP. I'm watching Sault.Ste.Marie and Nipissing to see if the NDP can pick both up from the PCs...

What makes you think that Fedeli would even come close to losing Nipissing, in the current political climate?  If the PC forms government, he is guaranteed a top position there, and he has cross party appeal in North Bay.

Perhaps the recent Mainstreet poll of that riding tipped him off?

Is Fedeli behind in that poll?

I haven't seen the polling, I wish, but pay-wall. This is my general impression of what I am hearing, updates on social media from the area.
Also, it's really the next most likely target after SSM in my opinion. You could probably flip a coin between Nipissing and Parry South-Muskoka over which one would go NDP.

Well, Nipissing is actually a majority urban riding (North Bay), so the NDP would definitely have a shot if Fideli wasn't so popular.

Parry Sound-Muskoka is very WASPy/ Old school conservative (but also very rural/small town), so could be a riding turned off of Fordism, but the NDP has no history there. The riding does have a lot of granola hippie types too that typically vote Green, but who might vote NDP this time.  Still though, the NDP has a better shot at Nipissing.

I will add, only as a clarification, the NDP won relatively strongly (40%) Muskoka-Georgian Bay in 1990 but lost, badly, in Parry Sound (4th after the greens).

Yeah, Parry Sound is more WASPy and Muskoka is more Granola-y, so there you go.

[Hatman 🍁]

An interesting (if thoroughly unscientific) opinion about the state of the race in the riding of  Peterborough-Kawartha, from CBC reporters who interviewed voters there:

When our news crew spent the day in Peterborough-Kawartha, it was overwhelmingly obvious this is a two-horse race between Progressive Conservative candidate Dave Smith and the NDP's Sean Conway.

Not one voter we interviewed said they would vote Liberal, and that included several people who said they voted Liberal in the last few elections (the Libs have held Peterborough since 2003, when they first formed government).

Sampling the population and judging by lawn signs on private property, it's hard to say who had the edge between the PCs and the New Democrats, but it's clear it's down to them.

If you count the PCs as having won the 1985 election, Peterborough (and Ajax/Pickering/Durham West) is the most bellwetherly riding in Ontario, having voted for the winner since 1977.

If you count the Liberals as having won the 1985 election, then Scarborough-Guildwood is the most bellwetherly riding, having gone for the winner since 1971.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, Parry Sound is more WASPy and Muskoka is more Granola-y, so there you go.

Surely the latter are mostly the former in Ontario?

Muskoka has more WASPs than Granola types yes, but that wasn't the point of my overgeneralization.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet's riding polls are boring and predictable at this point.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet's riding polls are boring and predictable at this point.

That being said, if i look at the glass as being half full I wonder what to make of how they have the NDP surprisingly competitive in some bedrock PC seats like York-Simcoe or Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound?

Perhaps income has to do with it. I remember the Greens once targeted Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, losing it by 13 points in 2007.

[Hatman 🍁]

Oh shoot, I missed the Brampton Centre poll. Yeah, that is disappointing.

[Hatman 🍁]

Anyway, try as they may to weight visible minorities, I'm sure Mainstreet is still underpolling them, which will skew the results there.

[Hatman 🍁]

Quito Maggi is hinting at some surprising results from his polls in Whitby and Barrie tomorrow.  He probably means Whitby, unless some sort of "Patrick Brown" effect is hurting the PCs in Barrie.

My prediction:

WHITBY - PCs and NDP are tied at the moment

BARRIE-SPRINGWATER-ORO-MEDONTE - PCs are leading slightly but the Green Party is doing shockingly well in second place

BARRIE-INNISFIL - PCs have a 15 plus lead over the NDP

Why do you think the Greens are second in BSOM? I thought they were throwing all of their eggs into the Guelph basket.

[Hatman 🍁]

Hmm. This election does have a BC 2017 feel to it.  The polls were tied and we were all told the electoral map favoured the Liberals.

[Hatman 🍁]

Dark horse 3-way race: Ottawa-Vanier

[Hatman 🍁]

Dark horse 3-way race: Ottawa-Vanier

You really think the Tories could pull that one off? I just assumed they would be a distant third, or maybe second with like 22% if the Liberals crapped the bed.

I don't think they can win; they have a vote ceiling of about 30% based on past results. But that could be enough to make a 3 way race. I doubt they'll get that good of a result though.

[Hatman 🍁]

He's got some balls, doesn't he. After the Calgary election, I thought he would exercise a degree of caution.