Ontario Reset: Model FAQs, Polls, Ford, Del Duca, And Debates

All Your Ontario Questions Answered

This week’s Ontario questions and answers column is presented from the Department Of “Mercedes Get Your Shit Together”, because I would like to see George Russell win a race this season.

Now, onto the election…

How Does Your Model Work/Why Are You So Optimistic About The Liberals/”But Fournier and Grenier Have A Majority! Explain!”

I’m lumping these together under one section because they’re fundamentally the same question – are you just giving Liberals useless hope or do you actually believe the numbers you’re spitting out?

The model works the same way that my federal model – which hit 314/338 seats exactly correct, and got the number of Liberal seats in Ontario exactly correct (although, high on the NDP and low on the CPC in Ontario) – did last year, a model that was closer to the overall aggregate result and better in specific seat hit rate than PJ Fournier’s model, for what it’s worth.

It’s a basic trends model – for a given point of province wide swing, the swing will be variable based on the seat, based on past trends in the seat. In suburban, left-trending areas (Peel, Halton, North York, and western Ottawa), the Tories will do worse and the main progressive alternative will do better. In right-trending, working class areas, the Tories will do better and the main progressive alternative (almost exclusively the NDP) will do worse. This is known to anyone who knows me as part of the Global Fucking Realignment, which the archives of this site explains well. And hell, I just wrote about it last week.

This underlying assumption – that the Liberals will do better in the Golden Horseshoe than a straight swing model would suggest – is why Grenier and Fournier were both low on the Liberals going into the 2021 and 2019 elections, and why they’re higher on the Tories than I am right now, despite very similar polling averages.

But What About Mainstreet’s Regional Data? The PCs Are Crushing It In The 905!

I could not care less.

My respect for Mainstreet is such that I take seriously the risk that their results could be right, but the general rule when pollsters show realignment-breaking results across the board in the last 5 years is that the pollster will be wrong. Every consequential electoral projection mistake I’ve made in the last 5 years has been because I undersold the realignment risks. Why did I not even consider Scott Simms losing in rural Newfoundland? I didn’t take the realignment risk seriously enough. I’m not making that mistake again.

This is the ship I will go down on, the basis of the model. I truly don’t care if I get this election wrong because the thing that has made calling almost every election since 2016 much easier decides to get wonky in Ontario. I just plainly don’t believe Doug Ford is a good enough candidate to turn back the clock and outperform global trends in left-trending suburbia. If that kills me, well, fuck it.

When Will The Polls Start Moving?

Probably pretty soon?

There was the Northern Ontario debate this afternoon, which I watched 0.0 seconds of, which won’t move any sizeable number of voters unless the press coverage of the debate breaks through – which I kind of doubt. What we’re waiting for right now is round 2 from the online pollsters – Leger and Abacus, basically – to see whether the last week (in Leger’s case) or the last few weeks (in Abacus’) have moved public opinion. We have the daily Mainstreet track, but as with Canada, it’s good to see whether the Mainstreet’s results are born out by the online pollsters or wildly contradicted (although, unlike Canada, Mainstreet’s results at a topline level are perfectly plausible).

The two moves to watch for is whether the NDP can make a run at the top slot in the progressive primary (they can’t), and whether Ford’s vote share starts to slide from the 37% mark to closer to 34% (I think so, but definitely not certain). If the NDP haven’t shown life by the end of this week, you’ll start to see the squeeze on them from the Liberals, talk of wasted votes rising, all the usual talk. It will have the benefit of being true, which is helpful, but it’s probably a do-or-die week for the NDP.

What About The Liberals Volatile Seat Projections?

I actually really agree with the idea that the Liberal seat projection is very volatile (or, put another way, fragile), and I do agree with PJ Fournier on the idea that the Liberals have ~60 seat upside and ~8 seat downside, given where the polls are now. At around 24% of the vote, the Liberals barely win anything back, but at 28% or 29%, they bust through in dozens of seats all at once. It’s a hyper fragile projection in that sense, but I just don’t think the NDP have the upside to get above them and push them down to 23% or 24%, so I don’t think the downside will hit. That said, it’s certainly not crazy.

Do You Still Believe Steven Del Duca Will Be Premier After This Election?

I don’t know how long the machinations of deposing a government on the floor will take, but Steven Del Duca will become Premier of Ontario this year, in my strong view.

Should Liberals Panic?

I remain deeply unpanicked, and when that status changes, I will say so. Until then, relax. (At least about the election. If you’re asking about my Leafs panic level, maybe start.)