Next Mayor of Toronto?

[Solid Snake]

She will never get the suburb vote.

 

[SJD_Toronto]

She will never get the suburb vote.

I think she can get a decent chunk of the suburb vote. In 2010, when Rob Ford first announced he was running for mayor, not many people thought he could actually win. I think Stintz has a shot at winning here, but we shall see who else jumps in and how the whole race plays out.

 

[Solid Snake]

I think she can get a decent chunk of the suburb vote. In 2010, when Rob Ford first announced he was running for mayor, not many people thought he could actually win. I think Stintz has a shot at winning here, but we shall see who else jumps in and how the whole race plays out.

Maybe North York, she can forget Scarborough and Etobicoke

 

[SJD_Toronto]

Maybe North York, she can forget Scarborough and Etobicoke

But even if she can take away a small number of votes in the east and west end of Toronto will help push her to victory. I have a hard time believing every single voter in Scarborough and Etobicoke will be voting for Rob Ford. It'll all depend on how many other people run for the mayor's job.

 

[JasonParis]

For supporters of the DRL, this is only good. Regardless of your opinion of her as a potential Mayor, she's thrown the issue front and centre into the campaign. It will draw a line for all future entrants on where they stand in terms of DRL priority.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I have a hard time believing every single voter in Scarborough and Etobicoke will be voting for Rob Ford. It'll all depend on how many other people run for the mayor's job.

The math really works out against Ford.

The man has almost no support in Old Toronto (including East York), which makes up a third of Toronto’s population. He’ll be lucky to get 20% of the vote down there.

In the Ford “strongholds” ( ) of Scarborough, Etobickoe, North York and York he has roughly 50% approval. Now if through some kind of miracle he somehow manages to convince each and every person who’s part of that 50% to vote for him, he’ll get roughly 42% of the vote overall. That’s his absolute best case scenario. It will be exceedingly difficult for him to win an election with 42% of the vote. I don’t think it’s ever been done before in Toronto.

Realistically speaking, the best case scenario won’t be happening for Ford. In 2014 there will be plenty of right-of-centre, subway champions in the race. They’ll almost certainly manage to get some of the 50% of people that approve of Ford’s job in Scarborough, Etobickoe, York and North York onto their team (Ford has always polled lower when put up against other candidates than he does with his approval polling). Assuming that Ford can convince 40% of people in those boroughs an 20% of people in Old Toronto to vote for him, he’ll get 35.1% of the vote overall. There is no way he can win an election with numbers that low.

Ford's biggest mistake so far has been his contempt for Old Toronto. He threw away almost a third of his potential vote.

 

[syn]

The math really works out against Ford.

The man has almost no support in Old Toronto (including East York), which makes up a third of Toronto’s population. He’ll be lucky to get 20% of the vote down there.

In the Ford “strongholds” ( ) of Scarborough, Etobickoe, North York and York he has roughly 50% approval. Now if through some kind of miracle he somehow manages to convince each and every person who’s part of that 50% to vote for him, he’ll get roughly 42% of the vote overall. That’s his absolute best case scenario. It will be exceedingly difficult for him to win an election with 42% of the vote. I don’t think it’s ever been done before in Toronto.

Realistically speaking, the best case scenario won’t be happening for Ford. In 2014 there will be plenty of right-of-centre, subway champions in the race. They’ll almost certainly manage to get some of the 50% of people that approve of Ford’s job in Scarborough, Etobickoe, York and North York onto their team (Ford has always polled lower when put up against other candidates than he does with his approval polling). Assuming that Ford can convince 40% of people in those boroughs an 20% of people in Old Toronto to vote for him, he’ll get 35.1% of the vote overall. There is no way he can win an election with numbers that low.

Ford's biggest mistake so far has been his contempt for Old Toronto. He threw away almost a third of his potential vote.

This election could shape up to have only one legit candidate that truly identifies with the 'left' and 'centre-left', kind of like how Ford was seen as the only right-leaning candidate in the last election.

Stinz and Ford may get good chunks of the vote, but Chow could end up with the biggest share.

 

[voxpopulicosmicum]

I don't understand this at all. Olivia Chow was not born in a Commonwealth nation, but in Hong Kong. Granted it was a British colony at the time, but Hong Kong was not a Commonwealth nation, instead being a British dependent territory, though for argument's sake we can include it - but what's your point here?. Besides, many new Canadians originate from the UK and Commonwealth nations, including Canada's large Jamaican, Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Guyanese and British populations.

Oh please. You know full-well that it's not possible to swing a dead cat in Toronto without hitting a Sri Lankan-born bank president. /s

 

[voxpopulicosmicum]

Why not look at the portion of the operating budget funded by Toronto taxpayers instead?

Because that wouldn't properly skew the results to fit the OP's narrative. Duh!

 

[Red October]

I really hate how much the media/politicians play up the "downtown-suburbs" divide in order to try and split the vote. Why can't Toronto elect a mayor? Why does it have to be us vs. them? Ford won because he convinced the suburbs they needed to fight back against downtown (even though Transit City mostly served the suburbs), and it worked. Then Ford actively and loudly turned his back on downtown as if the city only consisted of North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough. name one thing Ford has done for the City of Toronto and York/East York. One thing. Now we're talking about who would get "the suburban vote".

This city's politics frustrates me.

 

[syn]

The money from senior levels of government spending comes from the same taxpayers as the municipal money. You cannot simply state that the money from upper levels is irrelevant. What the graph clearly shows is during the ford administration the annual increases in spending have slowed to a crawl, especially in comparison to the steep climb in spending in the Miller years.

What I clearly stated was that Ford had kept the "budget tight". I did not say he reduced spending. Maintaining near flat year over year spending is in fact keeping the budget tight.

Let's remind ourselves who David Soknaki was in the Miller administration.
Canada.com

The money from other levels of government isn't irrelevant - that's the entire point.

Toronto in general submits far more in tax revenue that it receives in investment. Toronto needs investment. His inability to attract proper investment from other levels of government is yet another of Ford's failures.

Ford's own investigation into waste at City Hall in the beginning of his term led to the conclusion that there really wasn't any waste at all. The city was spending what it needed to be spending. This makes a lot of sense, considering it's been growing at a significant rate for decades.

Miller dealt with reality and created a framework that was necessary for the city.

 

[js97]

For supporters of the DRL, this is only good. Regardless of your opinion of her as a potential Mayor, she's thrown the issue front and centre into the campaign. It will draw a line for all future entrants on where they stand in terms of DRL priority.

More interesting, Tim Hudak has announced he will campaign on the DRL. Stintz will win against ford one on one, question is who else will run.

Another theory that's been thrown around - her intention to run was more to keep out a John Tory then actual intention - perhaps she made a bargain with Olivia Chow to keep Tory out of the race until 1 month before the elections, where she can than withdrawal.

I think elections rules in general should require a seating candidate to resign from their current seat to run for a separate seat. It creates way too many conflicts of interest and abuse of the system (i.e. Olivia will fully use her federal resources/office staff to campaign for the mayoral election, as she has in the past with her city council resources for MP).

 

[SJD_Toronto]

For supporters of the DRL, this is only good. Regardless of your opinion of her as a potential Mayor, she's thrown the issue front and centre into the campaign. It will draw a line for all future entrants on where they stand in terms of DRL priority.

She and her campaign staff need to sell the Relief Line as a subway for people in the suburbs. She needs to hit that nail on the head every single time. She needs to show that Ford's push for a Sheppard subway extension and Finch West subway will no nothing to reduce the growing congestion on the Yonge line. Once the race is officially on, I suggest she holds campaign stops at specific subway stations, and shoot a TV commercial or two about the Relief line.

 

[Solid Snake]

She and her campaign staff need to sell the Relief Line as a subway for people in the suburbs. She needs to hit that nail on the head every single time. She needs to show that Ford's push for a Sheppard subway extension and Finch West subway will no nothing to reduce the growing congestion on the Yonge line. Once the race is officially on, I suggest she holds campaign stops at specific subway stations, and shoot a TV commercial or two about the Relief line.

Just playing devil's advocate here...How would you do it?

 

[SJD_Toronto]

Just playing devil's advocate here...How would you do it?

I would hold lots of town hall meetings in the key areas of the city where there is transit already (near subway stations) or where transit is being planned (planned LRT lines) – the downtown, Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York. I would lay out a very, very strong transit plan and explain to voters over and over and over why the Relief Line is for all of the city residents and not just ‘downtowners’. I would hand out flyers showing the Relief Line with simple details why it's a subway line for everyone in the city. That in itself shows the want to unite the city on the transit file and not divide it.

I’d suggest she should come out swinging about the whole LRT vs Subway debate. She needs to remind voters that she didn’t flip flop on subways with Ford – she has stated that there was no money for Sheppard and it would have been fiscally irresponsible to start planning the Sheppard Subway extension.

She should hammer why LRTs are not streetcars, why we should invest in our local transit and why she “flip-flopped” on the Scarborough subway. She can say she did flip-flopped, but she can also argue that transit IS coming to Scarborough and to all parts of Toronto and she wants to truly bring the city together as one city.

I think meeting possible voters on the subway, especially at the Bloor-Yonge station at rush hour and campaign on transit expansion and the importance of the Relief Line would work in her favour. No way Ford would do something like that.

I think she should shoot a few different kinds of commercials – commercials that have her talking to the camera, explaining who she is, what she is all about, what her plans are, etc. She should also shoot one or two commercials about getting the Relief Line built.