Ontario 2018 election polling / strategic voting information

May 25, 2018 6:43 PM

I'm trying to find riding-level polling or other riding-level information to help me vote strategically in the 2018 Ontario provincial election. Does anyone have pointers? Does this data exist?
posted by ~ to Law & Government (9 answers total)

The CBC Poll Tracker has links to their source polls.

Bad news: these polls have sample sizes of around 1,000 people. I don’t think that will allow for the kind of riding-by-riding analysis you’re looking for. But, maybe if you click through to some of the individual polls you’ll get some useful info.
posted by bkpiano at 7:29 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I 'm a strategic voter this election. I factored in how my riding usually votes and then paid attention to what candidate signs I was seeing. in my case I voted for Wynne last election but will be voting NDP this election. I don't want to risk splitting the left vote (also I have been impressed with Horwath and like our local candidate).
posted by biggreenplant at 4:44 AM on May 26, 2018

If you click on "Seat Projections" in the CBC Poll Tracker that bkpiano linked, you'll see that the Liberals are currently projected to win less than 3-4 seats. Unless you're pretty sure you're in one of those couple of seats, NDP seems to be the safe left-wing vote this time around.
posted by clawsoon at 5:30 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I'm guessing that the seat projections are based on party votes last time +/- change in general vote this time, plus a bit of noise. I looked at the riding-by-riding results (official PDF). Here's a list of all the ridings where Liberals got at least 50% of the vote last time (and therefore might have a chance to win a seat this time), sorted by the PC vote (indicating likelihood of a PC steal if the vote is split).

Eglinton-Lawrence
- Lib 54%
- PC 33%
Markham-Unionville
- Lib 51%
- PC 33%
Mississauga South
- Lib 50%
- PC 33%
Ottawa-Orleans
- Lib 53%
- PC 33%
Willowdale
- Lib 52%
- PC 33%
Etobicoke Centre
- Lib 50%
- PC 32%
Don Valley West
- Lib 57%
- PC 30%
Ajax-Pickering
- Lib 51%
- PC 29%
Pickering-Scarborough East
- Lib 51%
- PC 28%
Mississauga-Streetsville
- Lib 52%
- PC 28%
Vaughan
- Lib 56%
- PC 28%
Don Valley East
- Lib 55%
- PC 26%
Mississauga East-Cooksville
- Lib 52%
- PC 26%
St. Paul's
- Lib 59%
- PC 23%
Ottawa-Vanier
- Lib 55%
- PC 22%
Scarborough Centre
- Lib 55%
- PC 21%
Scarborough Southwest
- Lib 50%
- PC 20%
Ottawa Centre
- Lib 52%
- PC 18%
Toronto Centre
- Lib 58%
- PC 18%
Thunder Bay-Atikokan
- Lib 52%
- PC 13%
Sault Ste. Marie
- Lib 58%
- PC 12%
Thunder Bay-Superior North
- Lib 55%
- PC 7%

I'm not a statistician, but - barring a better answer - I'd suggest that if you're not in one of the top dozen or so ridings in the list, an NDP vote is your safest bet. If you are in one of the top dozen, you'll have a more complicated decision to make unless Liberal support collapses completely.
posted by clawsoon at 6:15 AM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Global News has the following races as Lib vs PC or a 3-way:

Don Valley West
Mississauga Centre
Mississauga Lakeshore
Scarborough Centre
Scarborough Southwest
Toronto-St. Pauls
Vaughan-Woodbridge
Ottawa South
Northumberland-Peterborough South

Global has also been publishing seat by seat projections on a semi-regular basis. They warn that they're crude:

An exercise of this kind misses a lot of detail that matters in the real world, since it doesn’t catch local and regional dynamics which matter in elections. Candidates are treated as generic and interchangeable. Etobicoke North appears as an NDP win, for example, ignoring the fact that the Ford family’s base in municipal politics in the area is likely to translate into provincial votes for the PCs.

posted by clawsoon at 6:58 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would prefer to vote Liberal; I mostly like what Wynne has done while in office and I'd like to see her stay. But my particular riding has a strong NDP incumbent and an empty suit running for the Libs, so I guess I know what I gotta do :(
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 2:28 PM on May 26, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks so much. Frustratingly, I'm in one of those complicated ridings. Thanks clawsoon – I hadn't run into those Global seat-by-seat projections yet.
posted by ~ at 10:08 AM on May 27, 2018

https://www.scribd.com/document/380547586/Ontario-Proj-30-05-2018-Detailed#from_embed

This may help - it shows the likelihood of each riding being won by each party. I thought my riding was safely Liberal but it does not appear to be so.
posted by hepta at 8:26 PM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Good find, hepta! It looks like the source website is www.tooclosetocall.ca, which is updating their projections on a regular basis. They have a worrying analysis this morning, which says that riding-by-riding polls are showing a Conservative landslide, even though the province-wide polls are showing that the NDP has a chance. They conclude, though, that they trust the province-wide polls more, and that it is, in fact, a close race.
posted by clawsoon at 3:50 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]