PC 38.0% 70 Seats
NDP 36.5% 48 Seats
Lib 19.5% 5 Seats
Gr 5.0% 1 Seat
We aren’t even half way through 2018, but already this has to be one of the craziest years in Ontario politics, with political drama at times reminiscent of the politics we now often encounter south of the border.
After a gainful relocation further into the western foothills of Appalachia, not too far from Crazy George’s bridge of urban legend, (and along with resulting hiatus from my politics website), your faithful scribe has prepared the summation of what to expect on this Thursday’s vote in Ontario.
I really can’t say that my models and predictions differ all that much from those of the professional pollsters and analysts who are much closer to the action in Ontario – basically the electorate is in the mood for change, having put the Liberals in office at Queen’s Park for the last 15 consecutive years, and the resultant horse race between the NDP and PCs is essentially a virtual tie in the popular vote, although some polls are showing a slight trend towards the PCs in the last days of the campaign.
Since his election as PC leader earlier this year, Doug Ford, brother of the controversial, former mayor of Toronto, the late Rob Ford, has drawn comparisons in some quarters to the current U.S. President, Donald Trump with what is seen as his outspoken, oftentimes blunt, unrefined populist message. This has demonstrably contributed to a tightening of the race in the province, whether one thinks the comparisons to Trump are fair or not. A couple months ago the PCs seemed to be enjoying an insurmountable lead in the mid to high 40s in public opinion polls and projections of 80 to 90 seats. During the campaign, various controversies surrounding some of the PC candidates; nomination meetings; an awkward debate exchange where Mr. Ford complimented Premier Wynne’s smile (and later on what some perceived to be a Trump-like power handshake on his part with Premier Wynne); Mr. Ford’s net unfavourable ratings, (to say nothing of a recent family lawsuit against Mr. Ford reported just 48 hours prior to the vote) have all created an anybody-but-Ford movement to rival that of the throw-the-bums-out movement.
The main beneficiaries of the tightening race have been the NDP lead by Andrea Howarth, the only one of the three major party leaders with net positive favourability ratings. With the polls being effectively tied, it is widely held that a close race favours the PCs due to their vote distribution with the numerous suburban 905 ridings. The prospect of an NDP majority can not be entirely discounted, however, given that much of the polling does not reflect the stunning admission by the incumbent Liberal Premier, Kathleene Wynne, who recently stated that her party would lose Thursday’s vote, along with the news of the lawsuit against Mr. Ford which only broke 2 days before the vote. A late breaking trend towards the NDP which might fly under polling radar would not be unprecedented – the 2012 Alberta election consistently showed the Wildrose Party ahead, even the day before the election, only to see the incumbent PCs returned under Alison Redford.
It is worth mentioning the last NDP government under Premier Bob Rae was very unpopular when it was voted out of office in 1995 – it managed to alienate both moderates and conservatives with high deficit spending and traditional supporters in the unions with a subsequent policy of fiscal restraint including the infamous “Rae Days” where up to 12 unpaid days a year were imposed on public servants earning over $30k. The NDP, (along with Mr. Rae, who later on switched to the Liberals and ran for leadership of the federal party), have been “haunted” by the memory of those lean years in subsequent elections and as a result the provincial party has largely been relegated to the sidelines with limited growth outside their core constituencies. The resurgent NDP in the 2018 election a generation later suggests that the fear of a return to those days has have subsided, however residual it may still be.
To support my projection of a small PC majority, I both prospectively ran my model and then backed into it by trying to construct an NDP Majority. Absent a 4 or 5 point plurality, which virtually no recent poll is showing for the NDP, the math looks prohibitive. Among the reasons:
- The NDP are both competing with the Liberals and Greens for progressive votes in ridings such as Guelph, and also competing with the PCs for working class votes in ridings such as Cambridge and Durham
- The last NDP win in 1990 had over one dozen rural MPPs in areas such as Oxford and Lincoln who defeated one term Liberal incumbents, many of these same areas now have strongly entrenched PC incumbents
- The 905 belt surrounding Toronto, especially the Regions of York, Peel and Halton, have gained riding share, from roughly 10% of the Legislature in 1990 to 20% of the overall number of ridings today – and the NDP has virtually no electoral history in the aforementioned Regions
The situation of the NDP in the 905 Regions of York, Peel and Halton lends itself to some further analysis. In the literally hundreds upon hundreds of riding level contests held in what are now these 3 Regions since 1867, federally and provincially, the NDP, and it’s CCF predecessor, have won only 7 riding level contests, all of them provincial. This is not to say that the CCF/NDP MPPs elected from these Regions were also-rans who just happened to get lucky when their party hit a high water mark – at least two of these MPPs achieved national prominence. Agnes McPhail, the first woman to be elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1921, was also one of the first two women (the other being Rae Luckock) elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1943. Representing York East, (which at the time included the area covering Markham and Richmond Hill), she lost reelection in 1945 but was again returned in 1948 for a final term. More recently Jagmeet Singh won the riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton for the NDP in 2011, and was reelected in 2014 prior to being elected leader of the federal NDP in 2017. Mr. Singh is the first person of any visible minority group to lead a major federal political party on a permanent basis.
The Brampton area, including the area Mr. Singh represented, is particularly promising for the NDP this election, with many projecting, my model included, a sweep of all 5 area ridings. Perhaps much like their federal counterpart in Quebec, an electoral breakthrough in this part of the 905 begins with a toehold (much like Thomas Mulcair in Outremont) and then expands to an ‘Orange Crush’ wave later on. In this election, however, most opinion polling shows the NDP behind the PCs in the Greater Toronto Area 905 region, and factoring in stronger showings in Brampton, this likely means that the NDP support in other ridings is correspondingly that much lower.
In order for the NDP to win a majority, they have a very narrow path to win the necessary 15 seats required between their projected 48 wins and a bare majority of 63 seats. It would likely require a 5% plurality in terms of the popular vote, or roughly 39-40% overall, which at this point none of the recent polls show the NDP that far ahead over the PCs. They would have very little, if any margin for error and would need to retain all of their existing ridings, and make the anticipated inroads in areas such as London, Kitchener Waterloo, Northern Ontario and Brampton/Toronto. NDP gains in Scarborough and Durham outside of their traditional strongholds of Oshawa and Scarborough Southwest might be portents of an NDP majority – the only other riding currently projected to go orange is Scarborough Rouge Park. While gains here would not require the full 5% plurality, the challenge for the NDP is that much of this territory is also amendable to Ford Nation – namely working class, populist and more socially conservative than not. Doug Ford did particularly well in central and northern Scarborough during his 2014 Toronto mayoralty run.
Some of the individual ridings that might figure in an NDP majority (currently projected to go to other parties) are Toronto Centre, at least one the Peterborough area ridings, St. Catherines and possible, if it doesn’t go Green, Guelph. At this point, however, if the NDP were to win all of these seats, and say, maybe 5 between Scarborough and Durham, they would still be short by about 6 and would rapidly be closing in on their 5% plurality. They might succeed in picking up probably the 3 likeliest Mississauga Ridings to go orange – Mississauga Centre, East-Cooksville and Malton, or they may pick up 3 southwestern rural ridings if they actually cut into the PC vote (Huron-Bruce, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and Elgin-Middlesex-London) and likewise if they cut into the Tory vote in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes, Hastings, Lennox and Addington (H,L & A being 1 riding), the other Peterborough riding or Bay of Quinte. In any event, however, these 10 reach ridings listed would likely require a plurality of greater than 5%. Should the NDP end up winning a majority, look for the electoral map to have smaller, brighter spots of orange in more urban areas compared to the geographically broader (but lighter orange) NDP win in 1990. (The NDP actually flirted with using green as a colour that year for their campaign, some maps may be shaded accordingly.)
Meanwhile, the Liberals …
The previous low point for the Liberal party was in 1923, when Wellington Hay led his Liberal Party to a historical defeat garnering only 21.8% in the polls. They did not have many incumbents, however, as the United Farmers was elected with a majority in 1919, and both parties were swept aside four years later by Howard Ferguson’s Conservatives. Nearly a century later, the Liberals have 45 incumbents running for reelection, many of whom are well respected in their ridings. When you further factor in that fact that in the 3 instances where prior Liberal governments at Queen’s Park were routed, in 1905, 1943 and 1990, the decline in seats and popular vote, while usually steep, was not outright annihilation at the polls. In all cases the Liberals were able to hang onto at least dozen or so seats and preserve a minimum of 30% in the popular vote. In this instance the situation looks a lot more dire, with most polls showing the Liberals dipping below the previous 21.8% record in 1923 and even the prospect of winning the necessary 8 seats to keep official party status in the Legislature in doubt. After previously insisting that in an absolute worst case scenario that the Liberal floor could not go below 21%, with Premier Wynne’s stunning public forecast of her own defeat, I would anticipate that her remarks would further chill Liberal resolve and possibly drive support levels down to a subterranean 19.5%.
Where could the Liberals hang on and, if possible, keep official party status? Some models actually predict a Liberal wipeout or 1 seat, although my model shows that pockets of Toronto and Ottawa will remain red, with a probable minimum of 5 seats. Ottawa Vanier, for instance, (formerly Ottawa East) after it’s creation in 1908, has only had sporadic non-Liberal representation, and the Liberals have retained the seat continuously since 1971. Some of the more affluent, mid-town Toronto ridings such as Eglinton-Lawrence, the Don Valley area, Toronto Centre and Toronto St. Paul’s also appear poised to stay Liberal – the same areas where Doug Ford performed poorly during his 2014 mayoral run. The contests of nearby Don Valley West (Wynne’s riding) and Willowdale are currently projected as knife’s edge PC wins – only a few hundred votes in each could keep these ridings red and likely only 1 or 2 seats away from official party status. Likewise, being a point or two above 19.5 might help them retain Orleans in Ottawa, Vaughan-Woodbridge in York or either one of Mississauga Centre or Mississauga Malton. They might also be able to stave off NDP gains in University Rosedale, Ottawa Centre and Thunder Bay-Superior North.
A tale of two cities …
The ridings of Guelph and St. Catherines might bear particular mention. Both have long been Liberal bastions at Queen’s Park –albeit Guelph more historically with Harry Worton during the PC ascendancy after World War II, and St. Catherine’s being continuously represented by Liberal MPP Jim Bradley since 1977. At this point both ridings, corresponding to cities with over 100k people with prominent universities, appear poised to go in opposite directions. Guelph has increasingly bucked bellwether trends at the federal level, being a lone Liberal holdout during Stephen Harper’s 2011 sweep, and has routinely seen the Green Party outperform their provincial wide levels of support. If enough progressives can coordinate their votes, Green Party leader Mike Schreiner might make history as the first ever elected Green MPP (with possibly less than 30% of the vote in a close four way race).
St. Catherines, by contrast, might trend more populist than progressive. While some believe it will join other Niagara ridings in going orange, the voting statistics suggest that PC Sandie Bellows (who came close to winning the riding in 2011) is probably the most likely to end Mr. Bradley’s tenure this year.
The polls, the weather and millennial turnout influencing the vote …
The CBC poll tracker is showing a gradual trend towards the PCs, but as previously mentioned, this does not fully incorporate the news of the latest lawsuit against Mr. Ford, which could have some bearing on the race (probably a slight negative, as PC partisans will question the timing, but a few on the fence voters may give the NDP another look). Moreover, the polls themselves, showing a virtual tie, may help spur a higher turnout, which was only a paltry 51.3% the last time. This might favour the NDP, who poll consistently better with the millennial generation as opposed to older generations, but whose turnout is seen as somewhat less reliable than older age cohorts. Likewise, a narrative that suggests a horserace or the PCs only slightly ahead might spur some prospective NDP voters to action than might otherwise be the case. Even the weather appears to support a higher turnout, with major urban centres across the south central part of the province expected to be warm and sunny during tomorrow’s vote.
Some might lament the defeat of the Liberal party as some type of indicator of the decline of centrist politics in Ontario, but this is not necessarily the case. Ontario politics has historically rewarded stability and moderation – a long Liberal tenure towards the end of the 19th century and a 42 year PC tenure in the middle of the 20th century with many centrist policies adopted. Since the somewhat contentious 1985 PC leadership election of the bluer-than-redder Frank Miller, the Ontario PCs have become increasingly right wing in approach (although intersected with periods of moderate centrism) and quite possibly as a result have only won 3 out of the 9 elections held since Miller’s leadership win. Arguably the Liberals, especially after the tumultuous NDP reign in the early 1990s, have replaced the previously centrist PCs as the party of moderation in Ontario politics, even as Wynne has adopted some more progressive policies. Before we conclude that Ontario is entering a period of British Columbia-style polarized politics, left versus right, it is helpful to bear in mind two points. Firstly, with mainstream Canadian parties it is never advisable to write political obituaries – the NDP came out of troughs both federally (1993) and provincially (2003), as well as the federal Liberals in 2011.
Secondly, did I mention that 2018 is in fact a crazy year in Ontario politics with numerous distorting effects? The Liberal leader is deeply unpopular, but not necessarily the Liberal brand per se (they might have done a lot better with a different leader – yet Premier Wynne ran anyways and even ended up predicting her own defeat). The PCs did not really embrace polarizing Fordian populism so much as stumbled into it, with Ford winning his leadership race “electoral college” style while his main rival, Christine Elliot, won the popular vote (and who might have made this election a PC landslide). And per opinion polls, many parked their votes with the NDP not so much because they wanted the NDP to win as they wanted to stop Mr. Ford.
So my projection is a slight PC majority, but if my model is proven wrong by Friday morning, I can take solace in knowing that already crazier things have happened in Ontario that we couldn’t have predicted even 6 months ago, and that events could possibly get even crazier than anything we have previously seen pass under any bridge, at least as far as Ontario bridges go.
(to see a riding by riding breakdown, please open the attachment below. Please note that the percentages do not add up to 100 since I did not incorporate fringe/independent votes into my model)