It’s make-or-break time for Del Duca
Without a doubt, televised leaders’ debates are the most important events in any major political campaign.
It’s even more critical when there’s just one major debate, as is the case in the current Ontario election.
That’s why the 90-minute TV debate, to be aired across the province this coming Monday, may well be the biggest electoral factor in the success or failure of Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca.
Indeed, it’s make-or-break time for Del Duca.
That’s because, with barely three weeks to go in the campaign, he’s fast running out of time to convince Ontario voters that he — not Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives or Andrea Horwath and her NDP — is best suited to lead the province.
Del Duca’s low in the polls; his party is fighting it out with the NDP for second place, not with the Tories for first place; he’s failed to put Ford on the defensive; he’s been unable to sell voters on the need for a change in government; and his performance in this week’s livestreamed northern debate was deemed forgettable.
Horwath faces the same issues and the same high stakes, but she’s a veteran at political debates given that this is her fourth election as NDP leader and that she’s already widely known to voters.
For Del Duca, though, the coming TV debate is his best chance to show voters that while he may be unknown and underrated, he’s actually up for the job.
However, it will be a tough job; the Liberal leader enters the debate with several strikes against him.
First, the latest polls show Ford and the Progressive Conservatives actually widening the gap with both the Liberals and the NDP and headed toward a majority victory — one potentially larger than they enjoyed in the 2018 election.
The most recent polling by Mainstreet Research indicates the second-place Liberals have slipped back a bit toward the NDP.
The firm projects that based on current polling, the Tories will win 83 seats, the NDP 19 seats, the Liberals just 11 and the Greens one. Ten seats were deemed still too close to call.
Second, his performance in the northern debate wasn’t a knockout. “Del Duca managed to survive, but did not thrive in his first campaign debate,” Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn wrote. “After months of private debate rehearsals, it turns out he needs more prep time to get some pep.”
At the same time, though, Del Duca has several things going for him as he heads into Monday’s debate.
As the “rookie” in the debate, he comes in as a relative unknown, with expectations so low that even a passable performance would be good enough for pundits to declare him a winner, which could persuade some undecided voters to vote for the Liberals instead of the NDP.
And as the first-timer, he’s got much to gain by showing viewers that he’s fierce and unafraid of going after Ford for his handling of the steep increase in cost of living, his COVID response and his failings on the health-care system.
Del Duca can also use the debate as an opportunity to drive home to voters what are his top two priorities — those that really matter to him, not just airing a laundry list of 10 to 20 “priorities.”
Many political scientists dismiss debates as having little impact on elections. While it’s true many voters will already have decided for whom they will vote, the coming TV debate is a chance to confirm their choice.
Still, studies by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center have found that debates influence undecided or wavering voters.
Those are exactly the type of voters, many of them longtime Liberal supporters who abandoned the party in 2018, that Del Duca must win over if he hopes to succeed on June 2.
The coming make-or-break debate is his last, best chance of doing just that.