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Gallant by a close shave in New Brunswick

Final Projection –

Liberals                                                37.1%    24 Seats

Progressive Conservatives               31.6%    23 Seats

People’s Alliance                                12.1%    1 Seat

Green                                                    11.3%    1 Seat

New Democrats                                   6.7%      0 Seats

Other                                                     0.9%      0 Seats

We are down to the wire in New Brunswick … both with the campaign ending and the polls tightening.

My model is my best prediction of what I believe is likely to happen – this goes with the larger than usual caveat that any number of different scenarios could occur today, the margin in 7 or so key constituencies is that tight, and could result in any variant from a 1-3 seat Liberal majority to 1-2 seat PC majority.

That said, Liberal Premier Brian Gallant is likely to hang on with at least a near-majority, continuing a trend line in recent years where New Brunswickers have been reluctant to re-elect back to back majority governments with healthy margins. The last time that a government was re-elected with any majority was 15 years ago (Bernard Lord); a re-elected majority greater than 1 or 2 seats would be 23 years ago with then Premier Frank McKenna.

St; John, NB photo by Miguel Angel Sanz, Unsplash

Historically New Brunswickers have favoured the continuation of majority governments for more than one term – since close to the beginning of official partisan politics in the province with Liberal Allison Dysart’s re-election in 1939, all the Premiers prior to Bernard Lord were re-elected at least once with a healthy majority.

The current campaign has certainly occurred with at least some favourable tail winds for the Liberal banner – the start of the campaign saw Gallant lead his nearest rival, PC leader Blaine Higgs by double digits. The federal Liberals remain very popular in the province (holding all 10 seats in Parliament) and the Premier is said to be close political allies with both one of the leading federal New Brunswick cabinet ministers, Dominic Leblanc, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself.

This is not to say that the Premier has had enough personal popularity to maintain the initially high polling numbers – depending on the survey Premier Gallant has had either a modest net disapproval (or, in some surveys, worse) and there is reportedly some level of discontent with what has been reputed to be one of Canada’s most underperforming provinces economically with mounting levels of debt. The main opposition PC party has yet not been shown by any poll to have capitalized on what malaise exists, however, and for the first time since 1991, third parties appear poised to gain a larger share of the vote.

The fledgling People’s Action Party (PANB) under Kris Austin has trended upwards in recent polling, showing 16.4% in the latest Forum survey, while the Green Party also appears to have gained in the popular vote over 2014 with leader David Coons. The New Democrats appear to have lost some ground under Jennifer McKenzie.

Cape Spencer Lighthouse, Red Head Road, Mispec, NB, Canada Photo Sophia Noelle, Unsplash

While the PANB has clearly gained during the campaign, their problem is that they only have candidates running in 60% of the 49 ridings. Some believe that despite the lack of candidates, that PANB levels will hold up for two possible reasons – the localized nature of riding races would make poll respondents aware if they had a PANB candidate to vote for, and secondly, that the predominantly French-speaking areas were PANB lacks candidates is also where they consistently perform poorest.  Still, this is a largely unprecedented problem for a party, where the demand in voting for said party likely outstrips their supply of candidates.

My model assumes that the dearth of PANB candidates in all 49 ridings will indeed have some impact on their overall levels in the popular vote – they have at least some level of support with francophone New Brunswickers and there are in at least some of the ridings where they lack candidates, some potentially higher levels of support – whether Anglophone or Francophone. It would be too simplistic, however, to cut their averaged level of polling support by 40% (to the percentage of ridings with PANB candidates), instead, considering various regional trends within the province, I ultimately determined that instead of a poll average of 14.9% level of support, they might get 80% of that average at 12.1% instead, with Kris Austin being the only MLA elected in Fredericton-Grand Lake and the party doing strongest overall in the capital region and the areas of the rural, southern parts of the province.

Most polls show the NDP and Greens moving in opposite directions, the former losing ground while the latter is expected to gain modestly in popular vote, particular in urban areas and some rural pockets, and re-elect David Coons in Fredericton South. Initially I had projected that NDP leader Jennifer McKenzie would win Saint John Harbour, (the area long held by one of her NDP predecessors, former leader Elizabeth Weir), however the lower polling average for the NDP and distribution of the vote in other urban areas makes this a less likely prospect.

This leaves us with the Liberals and PCs, who are expected to capture regions of the province deemed traditional strongholds for their respective parties. The Liberals, perhaps more troubling for them, are expected to win the more northern, francophone ridings by wide margins (reducing their vote efficiency) while the PCs expect to do strongly (by narrower margins) in the southern, more Anglophone ridings.  To some extent the urban areas of the 3 largest cities, Fredericton, Moncton and St. John, promise to be battlegrounds.  My model has identified 7 ridings, based on current polling trends, that may be truly pivotal as to the final outcome, and 5 additional ridings which may factor into play if the polling trends break in a different direction than what is shown here.

Magnetic Hill near Moncton, NB Kelsey K, Unsplash

This is a brief synopsis of each of the 7 pivotal ridings:

  • Carleton-Victoria – Liberal incumbent and Environment and Local Government minister Andrew Harvey narrowly won this rural western, St. John River valley district in 2014; despite the fact that Mr. Harvey has now been elevated to cabinet, there is a sufficient swing in my model that puts this riding within reach of the PC candidate
  • Edmundston-Madawaska Centre – this predominantly francophone riding in northwestern New Brunswick was held by PC Madeline Dube since Bernard Lord’s sweep in 1999, four years ago she won narrowly and is not running for reelection. Former Liberal MP Jean-Claude D’Amours is running for Team Gallant this time, given the strong support the Liberal party has in francophone New Brunswick, this is likely to be the one Liberal pickup and pivotal to Gallant remaining in power
  • Fredericton North – Deputy Premier Stephen Horsman defeated PC incumbent Troy Lifford in the newly redistributed riding of Fredericton North four years ago, by slightly less than a two percent margin, my model is showing that Mr. Horsman will hang on by an even narrower half a percent margin this time
  • Fredericton West – Hanwell – Dominic Cardy ran as the NDP leader last election and narrowly lost this riding to PC incumbent Brian Macdonald; Macdonald is not running this year and Cardy is running again, this time as a PC. While my model predicts that Cardy will be the victor, it is also projecting a marked drop in NDP vote share and a roughly corresponding increase in PANB support, (where there was no candidate in 2014) – enough so that this could be a close fought race between him and PANB candidate Jason Paull
  • Saint Croix, near the southwest corner, containing the towns of St. Stephen, St. Andrew and Campobello Island, was the one riding that kept flipping between the Liberals and PCs in my model. The incumbent Liberal, John B. Ames, is Minister of Tourism, Heritage and Culture. The PC challenger is former federal MP and cabinet minister Greg Thompson. The current projection is showing a PC pickup by four tenths of a percent.
  • St. John East – this riding experienced a rather unprecedented turn of events four years ago when the newly elected Liberal, Gary Keating, quit his position after a few weeks of the election. A subsequent by-election saw his previous PC opponent, Glen Savoie, win a convincing victory. All three parties have held this riding in the past 4 decades, with recent PC wins resulting from a three way-split between the Liberals and NDP. If the Liberal and NDP vote consolidate behind the Liberal candidate, this will make this a closely fought race, otherwise Mr. Savoie should be returned to the legislature for the PCs.
  • St. John Harbour – NDP leader Jennifer McKenzie hopes to return the riding to the orange column as it was under NDP MLA Elizabeth Weir. Declining poll numbers for the provincial NDP make this unlikely, even if she marginally improves on the party’s showing in 2014. This may ultimately help the PC candidate, Barry Ogden, who might also benefit from the fact that the Liberal incumbent and former cabinet minister, Ed Doherty, is not running for reelection.

And a synopsis of the 5 additional ridings which may or may not be as pivotal

  • Fredericton Grand Lake – PC incumbent Pam Lynch has represented the riding (or its predecessor Fredericton – Fort Nashwaak), since 2010. Last election she won narrowly over PANB leader Kris Austin by 26 votes. My current projection of this rematch shows Austin comfortably winning, if this happens to be incorrect and Lynch retains the riding, this could prove pivotal to the PCs winning an overall plurality and possibly returning to the government benches.
  • Fredericton York – PC incumbent Kirk MacDonald is running again for a sixth term as MLA, my model is showing that he is likely to be returned to the legislature after fending back a strong PANB challenge from Rick DeSaulniers, who along with PANB leader Kris Austin in Fredericton-Grand Lake and Fredericton West – Hanwell candidate Jason Paull, are projected as having the greatest change of being PANB MLAs after Monday evening
  • Moncton Northwest – there is a very small chance of a Liberal pickup given polling which suggests Liberal strength in the Moncton area. PC incumbent Ernie Steeves won this open riding 4 years ago comfortably and the model does not suggest a swing sufficient enough for a Liberal gain
  • Moncton Southwest – PC incumbent Sherry Wilson won this redistributed riding four years ago by four points, (she was previously the MLA for Petitcodiac – partly the same territory). Relatively strong levels of Liberal support in this region might make this a gain if the Liberals surpass their popular support levels as determined in the model.
  • Shippagan-Lamèque-Miscou was one of the few closely fought northern ridings four years ago, with current Liberal incumbent, and Minister of Agriculture, Mines and Rural Affairs Wilfred Roussel, defeating then-PC incumbent and Deputy Premier Paul Robichaud four years ago. The model indicates that the race may still be closely fought, but given that it is now the Liberals who have advantages of incumbency in this northern riding, Rossel might have an easier time being elected this time than his predecessor four years ago.

In summation, the Liberals are likely to retain an overall plurality of votes and seats. While in normal elections they may benefit from a split of the opposition vote, they also have less voter efficiency than the PCs under Blaine Higgs. They could potentially increase their vote share in the northern francophone ridings while simultaneously dropping by 5 or more points in province-wide vote share. The key ridings in the urban areas will likely be decided by razor-thin margins, in some cases of a few dozen votes. If all the closely fought ridings were to trend in one or more directions, the upper end of Liberal strength might be a 29 seat majority, or for the PCs a 27 seat majority.

In the longer term, it appears that after today New Brunswick would be no closer to electing successive, stable majority governments than where they have been in the past 2 decades. The emergence of this increased electoral volatility might lend itself to further analysis to see what underlying dynamics could be causing some of the quickest rates of government turnover in Canada.  Nationally a re-elected Premier Gallant could bolster the fortunes of the federal Liberals.  Prime Minister Trudeau has already lost a close ally in Ontario Premier Kathleene Wynne at the first minister’s table, and after October 1st might also lose Quebec Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard.  Even a narrow Liberal win in New Brunswick today could signal to the federal Liberals that their key constituencies are holding up for next year’s federal election.  The likeliest scenario of a minority Liberal government being bolstered by Green leader David Coon (probably due to the PCs pledge to remove the province from a carbon tax proposal) might even portend the next federal election, where a progressive leaning Trudeau government may make common cause with the NDP and Greens in Ottawa to retain power if they, too, fall from majority status due to increased electoral volatility.

NB 2018 Final

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Ford PCs Have Slight Edge in Ontario Tossup June 7th

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.

Crazy George’s Bridge, taken by author (not 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.

Sun setting on Liberal fortunes … Derek Sutton, Unsplash

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
Mississauga, big part of the 905 where NDP dreams often aren’t realized Bruno Fatori, Unsplash

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.

Toronto, Sanctuary City for Liberals? Berkay Gumustekin, Unsplash

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)

Ontario Postable

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Can Democrat Doug Jones win in Alabama this December 12th?

Can Democrat Doug Jones win in Alabama this December 12th?

The road to the U.S. Senate may lie through Talladega County, but the underlying Republican tendencies of the state may be hard for Jones and the Democrats to overcome

Future Democratic victories will likely be a smaller set of counties, increasingly urban and less dependent on the rural white population in the state

* * *

The polls suggest that the Alabama Special Election for U.S. Senate is a “tossup” but barring the unexpected, such as further allegations of sexual misconduct, or an officially endorsed Republican write-in campaign by the RNC, Roy Moore will likely become Alabama’s next Senator, probably by a margin of 2-5 percentage points on election day.

Elections are supposedly determined by three factors in varying degrees – party, campaign and candidates. Alabama is one of the most Republican states in the country. Counties that trend Republican do so much quicker, to a much greater extent and are overall a lot more numerous than the very few counties that trend Democrat in this state. Simply put, the Republicans have a lot more room for error if a particular locality does not deliver a needed margin. The Democrats have no such margin of error.

ALABAMA POLITICS – THE LAST 50 YEARS SUMMARIZED

The last time Democrats predominated in this state is measured not in years but in decades. Nearly two decades ago was the last time a candidate for Governor won election, a quarter century ago that the last Democrat won a U.S. Senate election and more than four decades ago that a Presidential candidate carried the state. Since that time, and especially in the last ten years, the political map has been redrawn significantly.

The gradual shift towards the Republicans which began with Barry Goldwater’s decisive win here in 1964 became a stampede in the mid-2000s. The once solidly Democrat blue state (except for Winston County, as readers of How to Kill a Mockingbird might recall) has now seen most of the rural, predominantly white parts of the state move decisively towards the Republicans, taking with them all the statewide offices, elected judicial positions, plus both chambers of the State Legislature. Here in Tennessee, the joke is that the entire Democratic State Senate caucus can now fit inside a minivan. In Alabama, it would be augmented by two but still quite possibly the case if you had a full-size van.

DeSoto Falls, Alabama Photo by Loc Giang, unsplash

The last statewide election win by a Democrat was a very narrow win (less than 1%) by Lucy Baxley for the Public Service Commission in 2008, carrying 37 counties in so doing. She would lose the next election four years later by more than an 8% margin.

An election in 2006 for the Lieutenant Governor may be more instructive. In that year, a year good for Democrats nationally, Democrat Jim Folsom Jr., son of the famous Governor “Big Jim” Folsom and himself both previously a Governor and Lieutenant Governor in his own right, narrowly eked out a win over Republican Luther Strange (the current U.S. Senator) in carrying 45 counties. This was Strange’s first run for statewide office. The map below shows how each county voted in that election.

Folsom Jr.’s Narrow Win 2006

As you can see in the picture to the left, as recently as 2006 there could be a lot of Democratic blue on the Alabama political map, even if most of it was lightly-shaded. It is worth noting that a lot of the red on the map is also lightly shaded. You might note that in the northern part of the state, and especially in the very upper left (north-west) corner, there were several light blue counties.

In the grand scheme of things, 11 years may not seem like a lot of time. One might reasonably conclude that the political map of a Democratic Doug Jones victory in Alabama might look something like this map here. All you would have to do is fill in the light blue on a 2017 Special Senate election map to approximately match the map above, right?

NOT SO FAST!!!!

CURRENT ALABAMA POLITICAL CLIMATE

Trump’s 2016 Win

This map is more indicative of the current political climate in Alabama today. It shows the results of last year’s U.S. Presidential election, where the Republican Trump/Pence ticket won the state over the Democratic H. Clinton/Kaine ticket by some 28 points. While this is not a Republican high water mark (Goldwater and Nixon easily surpassed Trump’s 62% win) this map falls roughly in line with the political map since 2004 at the Presidential level (save for Jefferson County/Birmingham – the isolated light blue island towards the center of the map – which has trended from light red to light blue over the same period).

The basic rule of thumb is now this – dark red in the north outside of Birmingham and Huntsville (the lighter shade of red in the very northern part); dark red in the south east, a solid string of blue counties in the “Black Belt” in the south-central part of the state, and lighter red in the other parts of the state. This political alignment sees a 2 to 1 advantage for the Republicans in terms of votes, and even if Jones was to carry the counties containing Huntsville and Mobile (far southwest county jutting into the Gulf of Mexico), at best this might move the Democrats closer to a 3 to 2 disadvantage.

Some might point out that the Folsom race in 2006 could be seen as a more localized race, especially with the Folsom name, and that for many elections after Goldwater’s 1964 win that Alabamians as a whole have almost always split their tickets, voting for Republicans nationally while consistently returning Democrats to the state legislature in Montgomery and routinely electing Democrats to other statewide offices. While the topics of increased polarization and the decline of ticket splitting could both be topics in and of themselves, the evidence is clear. The fact that since 2006 the Democrats have lost control of their last bastion of power – the state legislature, and are now well in the minority in that body, as well as the fact they have only one Congressperson out of 7, and currently hold no other statewide offices or U.S. Senate seats, suggests that the above map is a very accurate portrayal of political realities in Alabama today.

The map to the left captures the 10-year trend between Folsom’s narrow win for the Democrats and Trump’s big win for the Republicans. This corroborates the above account both of Alabama turning increasingly more Republican and that the north, (especially the northwest), and the southeast being big components of this trend.

It is worth noting that several northwestern and northeastern counties which heavily supported the 2016 Republican ticket went for Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, even as he lost both the national and Alabama election by large double digit margins.

If there is any consolation for the Democrats, it is that larger urban centers of Jefferson (Birmingham) in the middle; Madison (Huntsville) in the far north; Mobile in the far southwest and especially Montgomery towards the southeast have either trended more Democratic (albeit incrementally and slowly) or else largely avoided the collapse of Democratic support elsewhere in those interceding years.

WHAT JONES NEEDS TO DO

The great thing about the 2006 Folsom victory map is that it is reflective of a very tight margin, which is likely what the margin would be if Doug Jones should happen to win. Thus, if you even took a handful of small counties out of the blue column on the Folsom map and made them the lightest shade of red, Luther Stranger would have edged him out in claiming the Lieutenant Governorship that year.

This year it is no different. The basic methodology here was to take some basis of Democratic support and try to build in a sufficient swing enough for Doug Jones to win. At this point we are assuming that there is no officially RNC-supported write-in campaign, and that other write-ins would grab an infinitesimal amount of support. This means we would need to run a model where Jones gets exactly 50.00% of the vote at minimum to win.

Jones’ Narrow Path to Victory

The basis used, for reasons noted above, would be the 2016 Presidential election map. Hillary Clinton received a total of 34.36% of the Alabama vote. This would be a swing of 15.64% between her vote in 2016 and what Doug Jones would need to reach the magic 50.00%.

No reliable model could make that a uniform 15.65% swing for each county … for some of the Black Belt counties that would actually put them near or over 100% Democratic support, in other counties, likely those in the northwest part of the state, a 15.64% swing would be probably too optimistic. Other counties such as Jefferson could see Democratic support increase, but much like Memphis/Shelby in west Tennessee, the Republican support would have a floor since you have the Republican-leaning suburbs of Germantown (Memphis) and Hoover (Birmingham). Roy Moore’s home county of Gadsden/Etowah did not get a 15.65% swing, although in the recent past, Etowah had actually voted for Bill Clinton. That said, I tried to use some consistent methodology, after roughly two dozen counties had to have some special adjustment. Simply put, for those remaining counties that did not require a special adjustment, if they were already Democrat trending, they got a swing larger than 15.65%. If the county in question trended more towards the Republicans, they got less than a 15.65% swing.

After trying to break down the overall 15.65% swing into what I thought might be a generous margin for Jones, he was still falling short of the 50.00%. I needed to go back to each of the swing layers and keep bumping them up until, after the third try, (never a promising sign) I was able to reach 50%. I went back and forth on Birmingham but figured that an overall vote percentage there of greater than the mid-60s for Jones would be too unrealistic.

The bottom line is, per my model, Jones must meet all of the following on his to-do list, unless there is some unknown, top secret groundswell of phantom old time rural conservative southern Democrats that I am not aware of.

Those tasks are:

  • Increase vote share in the Black Belt (quite possible)
  • Increase vote share in Montgomery City/County (also quite possible)
  • Increase vote share in Birmingham (very possible, up to a point)
  • Pick up Alabama’s 5th largest city, Tuscaloosa, and the surrounding county, immediately south west of Birmingham (possible)
  • Flip Madison County/Huntsville by a comfortable margin (doable)
  • Flip Mobile City & County by a hefty margin (a bit of a stretch)
  • Drastically cut the Republican margins of the two suburban Birmingham counties of St. Clair and Shelby well below 60% (much more of a stretch, although Republican support in St. Clair did not increase between 2012 and 2016, and actually declined in Shelby)
  • Come within at least one percentage point of taking Talladega County (shaded in white above – more on this below)
  • And, btw, not missing any other projection in any other county in the state
Stephen’s Gap cave … Cian Leach, Unsplash

No sweat, right? – just as easy as climbing right out of the Stephens Gap cave – just go straight up!

While Jones has, as previously noted, zero margin for error, a win in Talladega County has the added importance of representing the closest thing to a bell-weather county for Alabama. While several political analysts have cautioned against regarding Talledega as a true bell-weather, noting a slight Democratic lean compared to statewide results, the indisputable fact is that the demographics and household income measures in Talladega are roughly in line with that of the state as a whole. Talladega has roughly paralleled statewide Presidential results as far back as 1980; statewide Senatorial results since 1986, although they did buck the statewide result for Governor as recent as 2006 (going Democratic when the state as a whole decisively elected a Republican Governor).

My modelling has shown that Talladega is the one county under a minimal Jones-wins versus minimal Moore-wins scenario that could actually flip (all the other counties could back the same candidate in both models – albeit in varying shades of their party color). More specifically, the model shows that Jones cannot afford to lose Talladega by more than roughly half a percentage point – otherwise he has likely lost the state as a whole.

WHERE DO THE ALABAMA DEMS GO FROM HERE?

The main takeaway with my model and analysis is that the Democrats could, if the planets aligned correctly, have a path to victory in Alabama but old counties that they used to rely on are no longer there. Instead the path, at least in the short to middle term, is very narrow, and outside of the Black Belt depends heavily on the urban and suburban vote. On a map, a blue-shaded Democratic victory in will cover less counties than it did even a decade ago with Folsom Jr.

Folsom Jr.’s Win 2006
Potential Jones Win 2017

In some respects, this is the reverse of a dynamic that helped FDR during the New Deal Years. Beginning in 1932, the Republican-leaning, more urban, industrial states of the north and Midwest quickly flipped into the Democratic column; the small-c conservative, southern rural states, (which were not always amenable to New Deal politics) remained solidly Democratic until several decades later. In Alabama, it is the rural, northern and exurban counties that have quickly flipped by large swings to the solid Republican column since the mid-2000s; the urban areas of Democratic support have grown, but much more slowly.

To be sure, I have only looked at the one aspect of this election – the parties’ areas of core support and areas for growth. Many factors will ultimately determine the outcome between late November and mid-December – potential gaffes, further accusations, new scandals, intra-partisan warfare, an official write-in campaign, etc. This is not to say that dynamics couldn’t change to where Doug Jones could win by more than 50%. This is to simply point out that given the strong partisan leanings of the Yellowhammer state, that Jones has much more of an uphill battle than any Republican candidate in a state which is often the reddest on a national map of all states east of the Mississippi.

So, if this election continues to be neck-and-neck in the polls and people continue to see the allegations of Roy Moore front and center, Jones will definitely have one of the better showings by Democrats in this state, but barring the unexpected, the Alabama political climate is so entrenched in Republican politics that Jones will need every vote he can get.

E. Bucholz 11/25/17