The 2014
Ontario Election set an interesting tone for the NDP in downtown Toronto. Of
the five ridings in the 416 that were held by the NDP, only two were able to
survive the Ontario Liberal Party's surge to a majority government. Ironically,
the NDP's rightward positioning in their election platform resulted in
victories in the ridings of Windsor-West, Sudbury, and Oshawa. Each of these
ridings play host to large concentrations of working-class individuals and
families.
So what
happened to the NDP in Toronto? My personal riding of Trinity-Spadina alone saw
the Ontario Liberals beating long-time NDP incumbent Rosario Marchese by 9,200
votes. Marchese had represented the area since 1990 after defeating Liberal
candidate Bob Wong in what was then the riding of Fort York.
I wanted to
take a deeper, more quantitative look at what took place in the four individual
ridings that the NDP lost to the Liberals in downtown Toronto. Borrowing from
the work of Ryan Pike, a graduate student at the University of Calgary and a
contributor to Tom Flanagan's analysis of the 2012 Calgary-Centre by-election
in his book Winning Power, I examine the geographic tendencies that
occurred in the distribution of the vote at the polling district level between
the two provincial elections of 2011 and 2014. Statistical correlations were
used to examine the percentage of the vote each party received in each polling
district in four downtown Toronto ridings with itself and with the other major
parties. The correlation coefficient tables can be found below.
The reader
should note that this analysis was made possible due to the relative similarity
of the boundaries identifying polling districts in each riding for both
elections. On average, there were roughly five or so more polling districts in
2014 than there were in 2011. However, this was adjusted for by merging
geographically similar polls to create an equal number of polling districts for
both election years.
The four
ridings that this analysis looked at include Trinity-Spadina, Davenport,
Beaches East-York, and Parkdale High-Park. Toronto-Danforth was not chosen for
this analysis as the NDP incumbent Peter Tabuns significantly outperformed his
colleagues in the 416 and had won by a (relatively) comfortable margin of 3,200
votes. Although NDP candidate Cheri DiNovo won her riding of Parkdale-High
Park, her margin of victory was very slim.
When we
examine how well each party did in 2011 with itself in 2014, all parties
experienced primarily large, positive, and highly statistically significant
relationships. This means that the relative patterns of strength
remained similar for each party, even if the absolute numbers showed
that voters were more favourable of the OLP. This is an interesting finding as
the NDP received far fewer votes in three of four ridings in 2014 even if
polling districts show large strong NDP correlations.
One of the
more interesting finding from this examination shows that in all four ridings,
the correlation strength between the 2011 and 2014 NDP performance is not only
large - its larger than the OLP's correlation with its own performance in the
same election years. Analysis shows that the NDP tended to do rather well in the
same polling districts in which they had done well in 2011. This means that
geographically, long-time NDP voters were more likely to support their own
party than traditional Liberal voters supporting the OLP, but there were not
enough of these strong/loyal NDP supporters in each of these ridings for the
NDP to maintain control. It should be noted that turnout was roughly 3% higher
in the 2014 election than in the 2011 election. These “new” 2014 voters may have
largely voted Liberal in these ridings which may help explain the final
results.
The analysis
found that in two of the four ridings, there was a stronger negative correlation
between 2011 Liberal voters and voting for the NDP in 2014, than 2011 NDP
voters voting for the OLP in 2014. This means that someone who voted Liberal in
2011 was statistically less likely to vote for the NDP in 2014 as opposed to
someone who voted NDP in 2011 voting for the Liberals in 2014.
Initially I
was quite confused as to why there was such a strong positive relationship
between the 2011 and 2014 NDP vote. However, I took a look at some publicly
released polls to help situate my findings within the attitudes and beliefs of
the electorate. Abacus Data's June 11th poll in which 69% of
respondents who voted NDP in 2011 stated that they would vote NDP in 2014,
while 73% of individuals who voted OLP in 2011 stated that they would vote OLP
in 2014. This finding in particular may help explain my findings in the
paragraph above.
Taking the
above into account, how could the NDP perform well in the same polling
districts in 2014 as in 2011 but still lose three (almost four) of their five
ridings? I believe that these losses may have been the result of the overall
number of 'weak' NDP supporters in the downtown area. Almost every NDP
candidate across the 416 heard virtually the same thing from supporters at the
door: “I usually vote NDP but I don't know if I can again in this election.
This budget is just too good. Why did we call this election in the first place”?
The strong, positive and significant findings from the analysis shows that
die-hard NDP supporters did in fact come out to support their party on Election
Day, but the actual election results show that a large number of those who
voted NDP in 2011 were weak enough in their convictions that they chose to vote
against their party in favour of the Liberals. The polling districts that the
NDP did well in during the 2014 election were largely home to stronger NDP areas
of the city but there were not enough strong NDP voters throughout the riding
to guarantee an NDP win.
There are
many reasons why large numbers of downtown Toronto NDP supporters could have
defected in this past election. One reason may be that these weak NDP
supporters may have voted with their wallets by supporting a budget that they
believed would serve them best. Alternatively, 416 NDP supporters may have been
upset with Andrea Horwath's leadership and performance in the legislature -
more specifically her decision to dissolve the legislature and trigger the
election, especially when she was presented with a budget that (theoretically)
satisfied much of the NDP base. Both of these explanations can be rooted in the
Bloc-Recursive Model's assumptions that leadership evaluation and economic
considerations are among the two biggest variables that influence the way a
voter casts their ballot and may help explain why so many NDP supporters
defected en masse.
Geography,
however, might be a much more useful variable to take into account. More
specifically, I am referring to the very staunch divide between Ontarians
living in Toronto and the rest of Ontario. Due to Toronto's urban and
metropolitan nature, weak NDP partisans in the downtown 416 may have identify
themselves as being progressive first and with a political party second.
This segment of voters may have seen the NDP in 2011 as best representing
their progressive values, however, these voters may have been both seduced by
the Liberal Party's framing and disciplined communication of the their
'progressive' budget while being dismayed by the NDP's rightward positioning in
their platform. This Toronto-elsewhere paradigm might also explain why gains
were made in working-class ridings outside of the GTA, even as the NDP was
positioning itself more to the right. Although further research is needed, I
would assume that Torontonians are more likely to identify themselves as progressive as opposed to other urban
centres throughout the province. The more distant ridings of Windsor, Sudbury
and to a certain extent Oshawa saw voters who held different attitudes,
beliefs, and norms than those of the 416. Correlation coefficient analysis of
these ridings would be beneficial to help confirm this.
Another
interesting finding to note is that in all four ridings, there is a positive
correlation in 2011 and 2014 polling districts between the OLP and PCs. One
reason why this may be the case is that, on average, there were a number of
voters in both PC and OLP camps may have casted their ballot for the party to
the left/right. These defections, however, were not large enough to impact
final results. These leftward shifts by 2011 PC voters may have also contributed
the OLP successes in these ridings.
Although
polling data would provide more insight, I personally believe this 'blending'
of the two parties may have been a result of the following: Liberals may have
been angry at their government's mismanagement (or certainly perceived
mismanagement) of the government. Alternatively, PC supporters may have been
angry with Hudak himself (leadership evaluation) or his party's poorly
communicated austerity policies (economic considerations). However, it is
important to note that only three of these correlations were statistically
significant. PC supporters were more likely to go towards the OLP than any
other party while Greens were more likely to go to the NDP more than any other
party.
All
poll-level data for this analysis was obtained from the official 2011
Provincial Election results and the unofficial 2014 Provincial
Election Results from Elections Ontario.
Trinity
Spadina
Lib 11
|
NDP 11
|
PC 11
|
Green 11
|
|
Lib 14
|
.24***
|
-.23***
|
.14*
|
-.08
|
NDP 14
|
-.40***
|
.44***
|
-.35***
|
.13*
|
PC 14
|
.39***
|
-.42***
|
.41***
|
-.31***
|
Green 14
|
-0.26***
|
.18**
|
-.25***
|
.51***
|
*
Sig. <.05 ** Sig. <.01 *** Sig. <.001
Source:
Elections Ontario
Davenport
Lib 11
|
NDP 11
|
PC 11
|
Green 11
|
|
Lib 14
|
.52***
|
-.49***
|
.11
|
-.26***
|
NDP 14
|
-.49***
|
.55***
|
-.27***
|
.22**
|
PC 14
|
.28***
|
-.45***
|
.43***
|
-.06
|
Green 14
|
-.44***
|
.44***
|
-.12
|
0.18*
|
*
Sig. <.05 ** Sig. <.01 *** Sig. <.001
Source:
Elections Ontario
Beaches
East-York
Lib 11
|
NDP 11
|
PC 11
|
Green 11
|
|
Lib 14
|
.58***
|
-.40***
|
-.27***
|
.06
|
NDP 14
|
-.54***
|
0.64***
|
-.18*
|
-.16*
|
PC 14
|
.05
|
-0.42***
|
.66***
|
-.01
|
Green 14
|
.08
|
-.16
|
.02
|
.40***
|
*
Sig. <.05 ** Sig. <.01 *** Sig. <.001
Source:
Elections Ontario
Parkdale
High-Park
Lib 11
|
NDP 11
|
PC 11
|
Green 11
|
|
Lib 14
|
.58***
|
-.65***
|
.48***
|
-.21**
|
NDP 14
|
-.53***
|
.79***
|
-.72***
|
.19**
|
PC 14
|
.27***
|
-.67***
|
.78***
|
-.17*
|
Green 14
|
-.05
|
.03
|
-.11
|
.33***
|
*
Sig. <.05 ** Sig. <.01 *** Sig. <.001
Source:
Elections Ontario
