Weekly Writ for Apr. 24: Battleground spotlight on The 905
Plus, what do the polls say about a budget bump — or don't say?
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.
With the new electoral map now in force and the numbers of months before the next election countable on our fingers and toes, it’s time to start drilling down on the battlegrounds across the country — starting today with the so-called 905.
Periodically on the Weekly Writ, I’ll be doing some ‘battleground spotlights’ that take a look at the current projections in particular parts of the country. These projections are based on the model I’m using for the If The Election Were Held Today section of the newsletter, which is a simple proportional swing model (and which is also being expanded to provide province-by-province breakdowns). It has fewer bells and whistles, but it is generally the same system I’ve used in the seat projections for my Poll Trackers over the last few election cycles.
In these spotlights, I’ll class the ridings as likely, lean or toss-up. A riding that is projected to be a likely win for a party is one in which the party is projected to lead by 15 points or more. A ‘lean’ is a riding with a margin of between five and 15 points, while a toss-up is a riding with a margin of less than five points.
We’re starting this series with the 905 — the region covered by the 905 area code that includes the Greater Toronto Area (excluding Toronto itself), Hamilton and the Niagara Peninsula. Using this definition, the 905 is a massive region with 45 seats on the new electoral map.
In the last election, the Liberals dominated the 905. On the new map, the Liberals prevailed in 31 of the 45 ridings, leaving just 13 for the Conservatives and a single seat for the New Democrats. With the swing in the polls we’ve seen since the last election, however, the Liberals have no safe seats in the region and there are only a handful where they would be narrowly favoured.
Here’s the breakdown (the squares show who won the riding in the last election):
All 13 of the ridings the Conservatives won in this region in the last election would be safe if an election were held today, while a few Liberal wins now look like Conservative locks. That’s particularly the case in the York region north of Toronto, where the Conservatives would gain Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill, Markham–Unionville and Vaughan–Woodbridge.
The Conservatives are also favoured to gain seats from the Liberals in Halton and Peel regions to the southwest of Toronto, including seats in Burlington, Oakville and a couple in Mississauga. These seats are not locks, however, but we’d need to see some major movement in the polls for the Liberals to come back into contention in the dozen seats now seen to be leaning Conservative.
Most of Brampton is in the toss-up category, along with a trio of seats in Mississauga. If the election goes well for the Conservatives, nearly all of Peel will likely be blue. If the Liberals keep the Conservatives to a minority (or win themselves), it’s probably because a lot of Peel has stayed red.
There are just four seats that are leaning Liberal — as safe as it gets for the party in the 905. They are Ajax, Brampton West, Markham–Thornhill and Mississauga Centre. If the election goes sour for the Liberals, the party could go from 31 to just four seats in the region.
There’s less for the New Democrats to play for in the 905. The party is still safe in Hamilton Centre and is contesting Hamilton Mountain with the Conservatives, but beyond that would require some positive momentum in the polls to be in contention anywhere else in the region.
What happens in the 905 will be decisive for the election outcome. The Conservatives are currently poised to make 16 seat gains here at the expense of the Liberals, with potentially as many as 10 more when including the toss-up seats. That is well over half of the Conservatives’ current projected majority cushion and the region alone could be responsible for a quarter of the Liberals’ national losses. These ridings are primarily suburban, diverse and full of commuters and younger families. It’s no surprise that most of the political fights happening right now are related to the issues that matter most to these voters.
These battleground spotlights won’t be in every edition of the Weekly Writ, and when they are included they won’t always be above the paywall (as this one is). Once the trio of provincial elections in the fall are behind us, I’ll also switch things up by changing the Riding of the Week profile with a Region of the Week, drilling down in even greater detail into the current projections and historical election records of smaller clusters of ridings.
So, lots to come over the next 18 months from The Writ. But first, let’s get to what is in this week’s instalment:
News on the Alberta NDP leadership race as it enters a new stage, plus dates are set for the Quebec Liberal leadership and a Nova Scotia byelection.
Do the polls show any budget bump for the Liberals? Plus, new provincial numbers out of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, along with a poll on the voting intentions of recent immigrants to Canada.
Seat projections for the new 343-seat map if the election were held today.
Riding profile of Pictou West, which goes to the polls next month.
The story of a tight election in Prince Edward Island in the #EveryElectionProject.