Ford may still win, but ran ‘terrible’ campaign

How does this keep happening?

For the fourth-straight provincial election campaign, the Progressive Conservatives have screwed up.

In 2007, leader John Tory stuck like glue to his unpopular plan that public funding would be given to all religious schools. He lost.

In 2011 and 2014, Tim Hudak led the Progressive Conservatives, and each time his brand of conservatism was so hard-right (putting prisoners to work, cutting public-service jobs) that Ontarians were scared by it.

They may have wanted the Liberals out, but the alternative was so distasteful that they stayed with the devil they knew.

Now, in this election, Progressive Conservatives are doing it again.

They chose a “flawed leadership candidate” in the person of Doug Ford, who took the party’s popularity down, says Barry Kay, Wilfrid Laurier University political science professor who specializes in voting behaviour.

“The real story of the last month is that Ford blew an opportunity for a huge election win,” Kay said.

“He has run a terrible campaign.”

Two months ago, the Tories were riding high in the polls with a 20-point lead in some ridings. Kay and his colleagues predicted them winning with 82 seats, a healthy majority.

Now, though, the polls show them neck-and-neck with the New Democrats under leader Andrea Horwath.

Because the Conservative support is more efficiently distributed among ridings than the New Democrats, the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy projects a

narrow majority for the PCs of 67 seats, with 52 for the NDP and five for the Liberals. Sixty-three seats are needed for a majority.

Ford was problematic on many levels, including that he never produced the fully costed election platform that voters were promised. He’s short on detail and seems to be flying by the seat of his pants.

This is disconcerting to those of us who pay our taxes and expect well-run services in return.

So, once again, the Conservative leader is scaring voters who would otherwise be comfortable with a switch to more conservative values, such as a balanced budget now and again.

As for Waterloo Region, Kay says the race is between Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats, with Liberals in third place.

Using the available data, Kay projects incumbent MPP Catherine Fife of the NDP is safe in Waterloo. Kitchener-Conestoga is leaning Conservative and Kitchener Centre is leaning New Democrat. Cambridge and Kitchener South-Hespeler are deemed “too close to call.”

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne has taken the extraordinary step of admitting that her Liberals are so unpopular, they won’t be returned to government.

In fact, they’re in danger of losing party status. They need to keep eight seats for that. But according to Kay, there is not one safe Liberal seat in the entire province. Wynne may lose her own riding of Don Valley West. The party is on the brink of catastrophic defeat.

It’s only the dramatic collapse of the Liberal support base that is keeping the Conservatives in the game. By now, some are so desperate for a change that they’re willing even to vote for Ford.

The big story of this election campaign isn’t that the Liberals are losing support. It’s that the Progressive Conservatives are.