Ontario Poll Reset: The Tightening Is Here
Thoughts On Research Co And Leger
Last Wednesday, we got a series of polls suggesting that the dream was gone for the Ontario left, and it was at that point that the model tipped into majority government territory. Since then, Mainstreet dipped for the Tories, before shooting back to a sizeable lead and majority government position, but the other polls have been a lot different, and it’s worth focusing on those.
Innovative has gone from a 12% lead for the PCs to a 5% lead, Abacus has gone from a 9% lead to a 7% lead, Leger’s down from a 13% lead to a 9% lead, and Research Co hadn’t released a previous poll, but they have a 5% lead as well. We haven’t had anything new from Nanos or EKOS, but Frank Graves has hinted/suggested/wasted all of our time with useless words that his data is in line with his last poll, so still a lead in the 4% range. Nanos could come out soon after this and be the sole arbiter that moves right of the non-daily trackers, but right now, the Tories are slipping. (Update: Nanos just came out: their 5% lead blew out to 6.8%.)
If that’s not bad enough, here’s the Tory vote share, per those polls: 35% (Abacus, down from 38%), 36% (IRG, down from 40%), 34% (Research Co), 37% (Leger, down from 39%). This is a true weakening of the position the Ontario PCs had a week before, and it’s not a good sign for the party. (Update: Nanos went from 35.4% to 36.1%.) Left consolidation wasn’t enough to deprive Ford of a majority if he was at 38%, but down at 36%, he’s either in minority already (per my projections) or a lot closer to it with a little more NDP leakage to the Liberals.
Almost none of the polling out right now is post-debate – Abacus came out before the debate, and Leger and IRG were fully conducted before the debate, even if they came out after it. Mainstreet has some post debate in its rolling sample now, but not all of it is post-debate, and Research Co did a Sunday-Monday-Tuesday poll, so maybe half of it was post-debate, at best – and, with Research Co, we have no baseline to know if the debate did anything anyways. So the “why” the polls are tightening is hard to tell, but that they’re tightening is pretty apparent.
Would I be shocked if Doug Ford won majority government? No. I have never been so confident this time, as I was in Canada. I think the forecast’s right, and that they’re in the high 50s in seats – 57 as of this writing – but a six seat error wouldn’t be shocking, especially with a model that is as opposed to consensus as mine currently is. Is there a risk I am up my own ass? Sure. Would I be shocked if the polls moved to Ford from here? No – they moved hard to him in 2018, so it could happen again. The difference this time is that Ford won the 2018 debate, and at worst he drew the 2022 one, so I don’t know where his momentum comes from.
At this point in the campaign, there are four outcomes in terms of my projections and the eventual results, and it’s probably worth thinking about how likely those four outcomes are, so let’s do that.
1. Scrimshaw Projects PC Majority, PCs Get Majority
2. Scrimshaw Projects PC Majority, Hung Parliament Elected
3. Scrimshaw Projects Hung Parliament, PCs Get Majority
4. Scrimshaw Projects Hung Parliament, Hung Parliament Elected
I don’t think the second of those is likely, unless I project a small majority, everyone else projects a much bigger majority, and then the polls are massively wrong and the Liberals massively overperform their polling (which is possible but unlikely). Like, let’s be real honest here – does anyone really think that if I have a PC majority, I’m gonna end up bearish on the Liberals? Probably not.
Outcome 1 is likely if the polls move right again, and it would be a mildly embarrassing outcome for me, but much preferable to 3. If the polls don’t break the way I expect them to, that would suck, definitely, but getting the final result right matters more to me than sticking to a wrong answer out of pride. If I’m being stubbornly honest, somewhere deep down now I think I knew I was wrong in Virginia and stuck with it out of pride – that’s not the plan here. I’d much rather be criticized for having an incorrect theory of how polls will move than produce a bad final day forecast, because one of those is much easier to come back from (and will induce a whole lot less terrible DMs and tweets).
3 obviously terrifies the living shit out of me, and I’d be lying to you if I pretended I didn’t wake up in cold sweats at the prospect it’s coming for me. But that fear is, in my opinion, unjustified fear at this stage. 4 is obviously the dream, and this week’s set of polls really helps accomplish that goal.
Is Del Duca on track for enough seats and a second place finish that the Ford Tories will find themselves unable to govern in majority? Yes, I believe so. Does it scare me that everyone else disagrees? Sure, but everything during a campaign scares me, I just don’t usually talk about this openly because I try and talk about what I actually think based on the facts, not my fears.
Everybody who’s read Salvation In The Storm will be entirely unsurprised to find out that I am more contemplative and insecure human being than I come across on Twitter. Hell, anyone who has actually loyally read this site will find it a more contemplative and reflective than my reputation amongst … hell, not even like conservatives, even people who follow and seem to like my work.
Yes, I am an asshole with opinions – I’m Irish, what do you want from me? – but I am an asshole who has come to those opinions with more time and energy invested into them than a whole hell of a lot of others. Maybe I’m wrong here, who knows. I can’t predict the future (although, if I could, I doubt I’d use that skill to predict election results, I’d use it to get game scores in advance and bet the winners), but this is where my head is.
When I golf, I use an old putter of my grandfather’s, a company putter given to him when he was working for SunLife back in the 70s. It’s a gold putter head with SunLife etched into the back of the putter face, and one day I decided to put it in my bag, because I couldn’t make shit with my old putter and I wanted to respect my Grandfather, a man I loved greatly. I’m thinking of it now because it’s PGA Championship week, and it’s just, well, I miss him, and it just reminds me not only where I am now, but how wild and wacky the last 10 years have been.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right, but I started this site to give people an unvarnished view into my mind at any given time and any given place. Whatever you think of my motives, I’m here, and I’m being more honest with my audience than most. This is what I think – right or wrong. And that’s all there is to it.
The polls are tightening, Nick Kouvalis is a nonce, and Ford’s inner circle should be shitting themselves. Nice spot, two weeks out.