Ontario 2018 election

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

CBC announcing Ford has won.

Don't want to get too excited because in all likelyhood Ford will become Premier (assuming his win is confirmed), but if the stars were to align for an NDP flash-fire victory a la Alberta 2015 or Ontario 1990, this is the direction they would be moving...

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

Something I decided to calculate this while procrastinating from my finals, and I've determined that if the NDP wins Ontario, a majority of Canadians (about 61%) will live in a province with an NDP government. Has that ever happened before?

As for what I think will happen, my gut feeling is that Horwath takes it in the end and it might be bigger than people think possible. There are a couple recent examples in Canada of a party surging during the campaign to what seems like minority territory then snatching a majority when the votes come in (Trudeau 2015, Notley 2015 (although that required a near-perfect split on the right which won't happen here), Wynne 2014, possibly more I don't remember) and this is beginning to feel like those. This could be wishful thinking bc my best friend is from Ontario and we're both huge transit nerds who would be nervous to see a Ford within spitting distance of Queen's Park, let alone see him become Premier, but an NDP win has certainly entered the realm of possibility.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

Ipsos:
NDP: 37
PC: 36
Lib: 23
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4222975/ontario-election-pcs-ndp-tied-ipsos-poll/?utm_source=NewsletterBarrie&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2018

I predict that in the next two weeks the NDP will continue to rise, primarily at the expense of the Liberals but also nicking a point or two of the PCs. Both Wynne and Ford are toxic and so people are turning to the 3rd option. I think the NDP has worked this pretty well, with their talk of "Change for the better" and emphasizing that people don't just have to choose between "bad and worse". I would say the absolute Liberal floor is about 13% (Wynne's lowest recorded approval rating), so they have further to fall (I could be wrong about that but since Canada is much swingier than the US I figured there just aren't that many people willing to go down with the Wynne Liberal ship when the NDP has become viable). Of course past results don't necessarily dictate the future and there were different circumstances, but in Alberta Notley didn't start taking the lead in polls until two weeks before election day, and likewise in the 2011 orange crush the NDP didn't slip into second until two weeks before the election. And now we have the ONDP taking the lead for the first time two weeks out... We shall see if history repeats itself again or if this falters.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

Well what I've learned from election-watching, particularly in Canada, is that once a surge like this gets rolling it's very difficult to stop. I doubt a strong debate performance by Wynne will change much at all, she's just too far gone to recover, especially when Horwath largely held her own and Ford remained mediocre. I think in the end this will have very little impact on the course of the campaign and that the NDP will continue to rise in the coming week. If some event is going to abate the NDP's continued rise, this won't be it.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

Just curious, has baby Trudeau intervened at all on behalf of the Ontario Libs, or do federal politicians generally keep their noses out of provincial campaigns, unlike in the US?

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

As has been said I think the "Doug Ford headed for a Majority" headlines in the weekend before the election could work in the NDP's favor by galvanizing their softer/less-likely-to-vote supporters to go to the polls at a higher rate than they might have if it looked like the NDP was cruising (a la Hillary 2016) and by nudging whatever soft Libs are left to the NDP now that Premier Doug Ford is a very real possibility. But regardless its looking to be a nailbiter, which prob gives the PCs the edge, although I don't really buy that the NDP will be hurt *that* badly by geography, if they see the kind of swings polls suggest then it's gonna happen in weird and unexpected places and will probably be much bigger outside of their strongholds than within them. But the NDP hasn't taken off in the past week like I thought they might in the past week, although there's still a little less than a week left, that's still plenty of time for the Libs to further collapse or for the PCs to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as is their wont. Or of course, the polls could be wildly wrong and either party could run away with it (not the Liberals though, although I'd love it if it did happen bc it'd be ing hysterical), this is Canadian polling we're talking about!

On that note, I do believe it's possible there's a Corbyn-style result where the socialist/social democratic party overperforms expectations in part because of a massive surge in youth support and turnout that none of the pollsters picked up. Has there been an upswing in passionate/general support for Horwath among the youth population? I'd imagine her student loan policies are very attractive to them.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

On that note, I do believe it's possible there's a Corbyn-style result where the socialist/social democratic party overperforms expectations in part because of a massive surge in youth support and turnout that none of the pollsters picked up. Has there been an upswing in passionate/general support for Horwath among the youth population? I'd imagine her student loan policies are very attractive to them.

I don't see that happening.  There is no "Corbynesque" movement among the young people of Ontario or any Andrea-mania really (or anything resembling the excitement about Justin Trudeau in 2015, for that matter).  People are turning to the NDP more because they're tired of the Liberals and are willing to give the NDP a try.

Indeed. Turnout has been dismal in recent provincial elections, and I doubt this one will be much different. Though the polarization will help boost turnout a bit. If the NDP had a more charismatic leader they'd probably win in a slam dunk.

I see. But the problem with that is, does the ONDP even have anyone with charisma? The only person I can think of is Jagmeet and he left for federal politics (where he doesn't seem to have done very well so far). It also seems like Horwath has done a well enough job being personable and likable, and with the other two party leaders as unpopular as they are, being liked, or even just not hated, may prove to be enough. Maybe one of the (presumably) many newly-elected MPs will prove to be a wellspring of charisma and gear up to take on Ford in 2022 should the PCs win.

Also, on Facebook I spotted the Libs posting a graphic showing that "only the Liberals can stop the NDP," i.e. begging PC voters to look past how much they hate the Liberals and bail them out to stop the socialist hordes, which, given the past 23 years of Ontario politics, may just be the most pathetic thing I've ever seen from a campaign

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

Caveats about predicting the future notwithstanding, I really think people are overestimating the impact of a single election on a political party, especially one like the OLP. Even a disastrous showing (1-5 seats) would leave them with enough presence in the legislature to organize. Beyond that, and more importantly, the OLP, like most well-entrenched parties, is much more than its elected representatives. The money, institutional memory, expertise, and informal networks that animate it now will still be available to it after the election.

On a broader point, if you look at the ways political parties have died before it's been through a combination of prolonged atrophy and a major issue that split the party (or that it ended up on the wrong side of). The US Whigs, the British Liberals, the SoCreds, the Union Nationale, the pre-merger PCs - they all suffered multiple terms out of office and generational shifts on major issues before they were extinguished (and even then, you can argue a lot of them are still around in some form or another).

yeah but what if they get 0 seats? did ever happend that rulling party lose all seats? at least greens pick one district and go for it.

New Brunswick Tories in 1987. They still managed to get back into power by 1999

Yeah but there were no other parties in the legislature that time and they were still the primary opposition to the Liberals (other than the loony CoR, which fizzled after a few elections). If the Liberals are shut out, or even if they win a few seats, with the NDP taking up the mantle of the main leftist opposition (or possibly even the government, especially if the Liberals collapse even worse than predicted and given the track record of polling, especially in Canada) today could mark the day Ontario politics gets Manitoba-ized, with PCs on the right, NDP on the left, and the Liberals becoming the party of the bougie professional class and little else, which going forward maxes them out at 10 or so seats in Toronto and Ottawa.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

I will confess, a big part of my interest in this race is because of my own personal quest for bragging rights. My best friends at college lives in Mississauga, and I stayed at his house for Canada 150 last year, and we went into Toronto, got well and smashed, and then I started spouting off in the streets about how “Horwath will be Premier!” And when Doug Ford won the PC leadership, I suggested to him there could be room for the NDP to sneak up the middle between an unpopular Ford and hated Wynne, and he immediately shut me down, saying there was absolutely 0 chance, then when I tried to explain my rationale, he got mad at me for “acting like I knew [his] province better than [him].” So if the NDP does pull it off tonight, in addition to seeing a victory for a party very close to my own ideology, I’ll get to gloat too

Btw, the last batch of polls has seemed like a herding... very well may be wishful thinking, but I’m not buying the sudden last-minute PC swings, especially when other polls had the NDP on the rise in the last few days and Abacus’ last poll had the NDP up 4. Between that, Kenatagate, and what I suspect will be the deathbed conversion of many would-be Liberal voters to the NDP to stop Ford, I’m still predicting a narrow NDP win, but it’s gonna be a long night and it may be a few days before things shake out fully.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

I will confess, a big part of my interest in this race is because of my own personal quest for bragging rights. My best friends at college lives in Mississauga, and I stayed at his house for Canada 150 last year, and we went into Toronto, got well and smashed, and then I started spouting off in the streets about how “Horwath will be Premier!” And when Doug Ford won the PC leadership, I suggested to him there could be room for the NDP to sneak up the middle between an unpopular Ford and hated Wynne, and he immediately shut me down, saying there was absolutely 0 chance, then when I tried to explain my rationale, he got mad at me for “acting like I knew [his] province better than [him].” So if the NDP does pull it off tonight, in addition to seeing a victory for a party very close to my own ideology, I’ll get to gloat too

Btw, the last batch of polls has seemed like a herding... very well may be wishful thinking, but I’m not buying the sudden last-minute PC swings, especially when other polls had the NDP on the rise in the last few days and Abacus’ last poll had the NDP up 4. Between that, Kenatagate, and what I suspect will be the deathbed conversion of many would-be Liberal voters to the NDP to stop Ford, I’m still predicting a narrow NDP win, but it’s gonna be a long night and it may be a few days before things shake out fully.

You need to do something more wholesome when drunk... Like calling you ex.

Yeah it was a very nerdy drunk thing to do lol, but don't worry I've done that as well