2018 Ontario Provincial Election Discussion

[jje1000]

Thank goodness for an (impartial) professional civil service.

Let's hope it stays that way. A weaponized bureaucracy (like in the States) is tremendously dangerous as it acts as a government that can't be directly touched by the electorate.

 

[adma]

The NDP can’t hit Rae-level seat levels unless they hit 50%+

Seat redistributions since 1990 have made the 905 a must win. Outside of Oshawa and some of Brampton, the 905 burbs are a Dipper dead zone.

Though consider that in 1990, *all* of Peel region was a Dipper "dead zone" insofar as no NDPers were elected there. Jagmeet Singh, in 2011, was the first.

One other thing to keep in mind is how conventional electoral projection models can fail surging "third parties" or hitherto marginal forces, especially when prior elections saw said parties overly focussing upon target seats and holding what they had. Thus in Alberta in 2015, projecting NDP victories beyond Edmonton and Lethbridge was basically crap shoot guesswork.

More often than not, when waves happen, the surge is most dramatic in "lesser" seats--that is, a party surging from 15% to 45% in one seat does not necessarily equate to its surging from 65% to 95% in another (much less 65% to 195%, if we're to use share multiples rather than share points)

 

[Hopkins123]

First off don't be a @#$# head.

No one said you pulled numbers from thin air or any particular body part.

You will note that where others in this thread have made projections they have cited a poll, or the CBC polltracker or electionprediction.org or some other source.

Why should you be immune from the requirement to back up your claims? Pompousness and self-righteousness is not an obligatory exception to the rules of evidence in court or in debate.

****

Now that we've got that straight, its fine that you cite that model and interesting.

I went and read the disclosure on the methodology. Did you?

Did you note that the estimate is sometimes close, but often not and that it tends to overr-represent whomever it believes to be leading? It did so w/Liberals previously.

The guess is worthwhile and not uninformed.

I agree w/many of the calls based on what I know, so far.

But as someone who has access to riding polls I can say w/some confidence that there is divergence between what I consider the numbers and this model.

I (sadly) peg the PCs as leading in seat count...........but I'm a good deal lower than that model.

So are all the parties.

Who knows what will happen 3 weeks from now.

But I wouldn't cite the numbers I have access to as fact and you certainly shouldn't do so w/yours.

You also shouldn't fail to cite sources like a reflex.

Its good debating skill to back up your information.

Not that your previous posts indicate any love for facts.

***

One more thing, for clarity's sake.

This models results are a guess, not facts.

They may prove correct or may not.

But they are not facts.

Your inability to differentiate facts from guesses is deeply disturbing.

Sorry, my anger was not directed at you personally; there's no need for name-calling.

I very well can differentiate fact from fiction, but the fact is a 10-point lead in 74 out of 124 ridings according to Lispop is significant. I'm assuming their utilizing local riding-by-riding polling samples in their algorithms to come to these seat projections, more scientific than a blanket general province-wide poll. What could break in the next three weeks to turn the election around for the Liberals or catapult the NDP into first place? It's one thing to cling to hope if you're anti-Ford; it's another to not at least consider that I may have a point and brace oneself for the likelihood of a Conservative majority government.

And majority is likely - the thought of a minority with all three parties quagmired in legislative impasse will be too much to bear for most partisans. That's where the remaining Blue Liberal undecideds will park their votes with the Tories, I'm guessing.

 

[adma]

Sorry, my anger was not directed at you personally; there's no need for name-calling.

I very well can differentiate fact from fiction, but the fact is a 10-point lead in 74 out of 124 ridings according to Lispop is significant. I'm assuming their utilizing local riding-by-riding polling samples in their algorithms to come to these seat projections, more scientific than a blanket general province-wide poll. What could break in the next three weeks to turn the election around for the Liberals or catapult the NDP into first place? It's one thing to cling to hope if you're anti-Ford; it's another to not at least consider that I may have a point and brace oneself for the likelihood of a Conservative majority government.

And majority is likely - the thought of a minority with all three parties quagmired in legislative impasse will be too much to bear for most partisans. That's where the remaining Blue Liberal undecideds will park their votes with the Tories, I'm guessing.

Looking once again at Lispop, may I ask you something: does Lispop actually offer *figures* beyond Solid/Leaning/TCTC? Not just for the winners and their margins, but for *all* the parties in their respective ridings? Most "scientific projection" sites that I know of do. And they also offer clear on-site explanations of their methodology. I don't see that here; all I see are pretty maps with pretty colours, and no meaningful data whatsoever (other than current projection + 2014 winner/runner-up) when I click on each individual riding. Not to quibble with their conclusions; but I'd appreciate a bit more fine-toothed transparency...

 

[adma]

Oh, and re recent PC polling figures, here's some food for thought: in defeat, Tim Hudak got 35.45% of the vote in 2011.

 

[King of Kensington]

The NDP can’t hit Rae-level seat levels unless they hit 50%+

Seat redistributions since 1990 have made the 905 a must win. Outside of Oshawa and some of Brampton, the 905 burbs are a Dipper dead zone.

The NDP path to victory is indeed tougher this time. 905 plays a bigger role today than in 1990 (and observers didn't really notice its political power until Harris swept it in '95).

In addition, 1990 was a NDP vs. Liberal race with the PCs being the third party. Vote-splitting on the right (the Family Coalition and Confederdation of Regions parties took a lot of right-wing votes from the PCs) helped the NDP slip up the middle in about 10 rural seats.

Another factor was the role of the Liberals who were more explicitly the "center" party in that election and had a stronger right flank. Peterson engaged in quite a bit of red-baiting and it seems that the Liberals helped split the anti-NDP vote as well. This time virtually nobody is going to be voting Liberal to "stop the NDP."

 

[Northern Light]

Sorry, my anger was not directed at you personally; there's no need for name-calling.

I very well can differentiate fact from fiction, but the fact is a 10-point lead in 74 out of 124 ridings according to Lispop is significant. I'm assuming their utilizing local riding-by-riding polling samples in their algorithms to come to these seat projections, more scientific than a blanket general province-wide poll. What could break in the next three weeks to turn the election around for the Liberals or catapult the NDP into first place? It's one thing to cling to hope if you're anti-Ford; it's another to not at least consider that I may have a point and brace oneself for the likelihood of a Conservative majority government.

And majority is likely - the thought of a minority with all three parties quagmired in legislative impasse will be too much to bear for most partisans. That's where the remaining Blue Liberal undecideds will park their votes with the Tories, I'm guessing.

Your anger wasn't appropriate posting etiquette and was posted with a quote from me. Hence my response.

But let's move on.

Methodology for Lispop is discussed here: https://www.lispop.ca/sites/lispop.ca/files/Improving Upon The Cube Law.pdf

It does not appear to use riding polls. Which in any event, to my knowledge haven't actually been produced in every riding since the writ dropped.

***

One more note, their projection does not appear to have been updated since May 13.

 

[BurlOak]

Thank goodness for an (impartial) professional civil service.

Which jurisdiction are you talking about - surely not Ontario.

 

[BurlOak]

So how is touting a $5B+ one stop subway to STC going to impress the 905?

Regional Rail will and does. Spend that $5B+ by all means, but not on a freakin' tunnel to nowhere as every expert has pointed out as folly.

You exactly make my point. Expand rail transit to the 905, and that means RER, and in the next five years, not twenty.

Nothing engenders disgust and loathing of "Entitled Toronto" more than "Subways, Subways, Subways". That means money for Toronto that should be spread far more equitably in the regions, and vastly mores sensibly.

Horwath has that opportunity. Jessica Bell has already expounded it before running for the NDP.


I think Horwath should take the points under advisement along with ones reaching even further out into the 905 and 519/705.

Edit to Add: And btw, the co-author of the piece above? Here's his org:
Scarborough Transit Action – LRT NETWORK NOW

Example:
Vincent Puhakka published We surveyed riders at Lawrence East SRT station and (surprise, surprise) they don’t want the subway

Scarborough has come to represent all suburbs that are sick of the downtown elites. Promise to screw Scarborough and benefit the other suburbs will likely not work - because people would be suspicious that the true motivation is simply to screw the suburbs.

 

[steveintoronto]

Scarborough has come to represent all suburbs that are sick of the downtown elites. Promise to screw Scarborough and benefit the other suburbs will likely not work - because people would be suspicious that the true motivation is simply to screw the suburbs.

I think it's more a case of a "screw" loose. And that's those that think Scarborough should see $5B+ blown on one destination in Scarborough when the rest of Scarborough is left wanting, as are the regions to the north and east.

But of course, it's all about you. THAT is exactly what pisses off York, Durham and other regions. They don't want no stinking subway to nowhere. They want effectively delivered and *fact based costing* service to their regions. Sensible surface transport can serve them and Scarborough for $5B. So why should Scarborough get it all?

Odd that...

 

[steveintoronto]

Though consider that in 1990, *all* of Peel region was a Dipper "dead zone" insofar as no NDPers were elected there. Jagmeet Singh, in 2011, was the first.

One other thing to keep in mind is how conventional electoral projection models can fail surging "third parties" or hitherto marginal forces, especially when prior elections saw said parties overly focussing upon target seats and holding what they had. Thus in Alberta in 2015, projecting NDP victories beyond Edmonton and Lethbridge was basically crap shoot guesswork.

More often than not, when waves happen, the surge is most dramatic in "lesser" seats--that is, a party surging from 15% to 45% in one seat does not necessarily equate to its surging from 65% to 95% in another (much less 65% to 195%, if we're to use share multiples rather than share points)

This!
"Surge" is going to be the term more used. I've been using "tip" as it's more indicative of the change at a geometric rate as opposed to arithmetic, as the 'centre of gravity' rapidly shifts once a critical point has been reached. And the polls indicate incremental progress towards that for the NDP.

 

[BurlOak]

I think it's more a case of a "screw" loose. And that's those that think Scarborough should see $5B+ blown on one destination in Scarborough when the rest of Scarborough is left wanting, as are the regions to the north and east.

But of course, it's all about you. THAT is exactly what pisses off York, Durham and other regions. They don't want no stinking subway to nowhere. They want effectively delivered and *fact based costing* service to their regions. Sensible surface transport can serve them and Scarborough for $5B. So why should Scarborough get it all?

Odd that...

Look, in 2012/13, the Provincial government and City Council agreed that Fords transit plans (and Ford himself) must be killed at all costs.
Now we are paying those costs.
And ironically, we are sort of following through with Fords plans (or at least the intent), because we failed to agree and a simpler solution (that serves the demand) sooner.
And even more ironically, with Ford's drug implosion, he would have defeated himself anyway.

 

[King of Kensington]

Sorry, my anger was not directed at you personally; there's no need for name-calling.

I very well can differentiate fact from fiction, but the fact is a 10-point lead in 74 out of 124 ridings according to Lispop is significant. I'm assuming their utilizing local riding-by-riding polling samples in their algorithms to come to these seat projections, more scientific than a blanket general province-wide poll. What could break in the next three weeks to turn the election around for the Liberals or catapult the NDP into first place? It's one thing to cling to hope if you're anti-Ford; it's another to not at least consider that I may have a point and brace oneself for the likelihood of a Conservative majority government.

And majority is likely - the thought of a minority with all three parties quagmired in legislative impasse will be too much to bear for most partisans. That's where the remaining Blue Liberal undecideds will park their votes with the Tories, I'm guessing.

Most polling at the riding level is done on behalf of parties themselves and carefully guarded. They wouldn't be sharing it with LISPOP.

Again, it's a seat projection model and we have no idea how sophisticated their methodology is, since they reveal nothing. However looking at the maps, it seems to me like they aren't doing anything much beyond a universal swing model.

Do I think a PC majority is possible? Yes, I think it is quite likely at the moment, unfortunately. They have a path to victory where dominating the suburban GTA plays a key role. But you can't confidently say the Tories are "ahead" in 74 ridings based on the LISPOP map.

 

[Northern Light]

Most polling at the riding level is done on behalf of parties themselves and carefully guarded. They wouldn't be sharing it with LISPOP.

Again, it's a seat projection model and we have no idea how sophisticated their methodology is, since they reveal nothing. However looking at the maps, it seems to me like they aren't doing anything much beyond a universal swing model.

Do I think a PC majority is possible? Yes, I think it is quite likely at the moment, unfortunately. They have a path to victory where dominating the suburban GTA plays a key role. But you can't confidently say the Tories are "ahead" in 74 ridings based on the LISPOP map.

Just for fun.

LISPOP archived their predictions from the last federal election.

So the provincial update cited is May 13 this year or 25 days ahead of the actual election day.

Looking for a close approximation, this is their call 21 days ahead of the 2015 Federal result.

http://lispop.ca/seat-projection/federal/2015-09-29/conservatives-move-first-place.

They were just a bit off.......

 

[steveintoronto]

THE BLOG
12/14/2016 10:58 am ET Updated Dec 15, 2017
Political Polling Is A Flawed Science That Leads To Fatally Flawed Reporting

When I taught research methods and statistics to graduate students at Brooklyn College, if a student submitted a project like the daily and weekly political polls featured during the recent presidential campaign, the student would receive a low grade or fail the course. I would explain to the student that at best his or her poll was what is called a pilot investigation—a work in progress—to identify the issues and obstacles for designing a valid piece of research.

The same can be said about many of the political polls.Their primary flaw was in the critical first link in the chain: the sampling, which refers to how the pollsters selected the people they queried and how many participants were in the final samples from which conclusions were drawn.

If the purpose of a poll was to assess preferences or intentions to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in a particular state, the sample should have had a sufficient number that included the diversity of the voting population—by age, religion, ethnicity, political affiliation, education, and income. Many samples did not. For example, according to the Independent Voter Network (IVN), the CNN polls did not have adequate representation of 18-34 year old voters, a demographic of 75 million, the largest living U.S. generation; andFox News polls notably under-sampled independent voters.
[...]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/most-political-polls-repo_b_13606594.html

Polls Are Not Rigged, But They Also Aren't 'Scientific'
[...]
So, what is a scientific poll? First, it is a misnomer. There is nothing scientific about a poll. (More on that later.) Second, it is conducted using sound statistical techniques.

Properly done, an election poll tries to determine as accurately as possible how voters will vote in an upcoming election. To do this, pollsters survey a diverse sample of people who they hope are representative of the entire population. But since this group is never a perfect representation of the population (because it may oversample some voters and undersample others), pollsters "weight" the results. If a sample has few minority voters, for example, the pollsters will inflate the answers provided by minority respondents in order to counteract the effect of undersampling. More complex polls, such as "likely voter" polls, ask a series of questions to screen out people who are unlikely to vote.

These are tried and true methods but they are far more art than science. If calculated using wrong assumptions, weighting can skew the results. And screening voters to determine who is likely to vote is guesswork. It is sophisticated guesswork, but it is still guesswork. An analysis at UK Polling Report explains how various weights and turnout models incorrectly skewed most of the Brexit polls in favor of Remain, when in actuality Leave won by nearly 4 points.
[...]

https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/10/19/polls-are-not-rigged-they-also-arent-scientific-10329

And as we've all discovered, the polls aren't even 'polls' in an unadulterated sense. When names like Leger Marketing et al enter the picture, it's marketing, not reporting.

Oh Look! Black Squirrel....wait a minute, it's Black Swans!