Swing towns
Twenty out of 30 ridings in Ontario’s 905 region, an electoral barometer, have no clear frontrunner
It is a Canadian cliché to state that the all-important 905 region of Ontario makes or breaks governments. However, when we pause and take a look at past election results, we see that the suburbs surrounding Toronto not only contain a fair share of swing districts, but also act as excellent electoral barometers. The cliché does have some historical validity.
Among the 30 districts delimiting the region, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won no fewer than 24 of them in 2015 while en route to a harvest of 80 Ontario seats and a majority victory over the Conservatives. It was quite the contrast with the previous election: if we transpose the 2011 general election results onto the 2015 map (the number of seats in the House of Commons went from 308 to 338), we see that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives would have won a crushing 28 of 30 seats, while Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals and the New Democratic Party each would have won one seat.
The Liberals certainly have their work cut out for them in 2019 if they hope for a repeat performance. Although opinion polls of the past months have indicated that the Liberal party is still in the lead provincewide, the gap between the two main parties has significantly narrowed since 2015. As of this writing, the 905 region is almost evenly split: the Conservatives have a projected lead in 14 districts, and the Liberals lead in 16. Moreover, 11 of the 30 districts are projected as toss-ups, according to the 338Canada electoral model, and an additional nine districts are labeled as “leaning”— that is, data analysts cannot state with confidence which party should be considered the favourite as the election campaign begins.
So a total of 20 electoral districts are projected as toss-ups or leaning in the 905 region alone. We note for the sake of comparison that in the 2015 general election the Liberals won a total of 184 seats, merely 14 seats above the 170-seat threshold for a majority in the House of Commons. A subpar performance by the Grits in the region in 2019 could cost them the election.
According to current data, the Liberals have 41 per cent support in the region and an average lead of 3 points over the Conservatives who stand at an average of 38 per cent. (The NDP is a distant third at 10 per cent and is not competitive in any 905 district.) However, this projected gap between the Grits and Tories is so narrow that it should be considered a statistical tie. It appears the 905 cliché is still alive and well for the 43rd Canadian general federal election.