Winning a fourth mandate and returning to power was certainly a victory for federal liberals, but was affected by a disappointing action in Ontario that played an important role in costing them a majority.
“Obviously, if you compare yourself with the place where the liberals were three months ago, it was an incredibly surprising result in Ontario. But I think it would be fair to say that to reach a majority government, they had to stay on the ontary,” said Dan Arnold, director of strategy of the research firm and former research strategist for the liberals of Justin Trudeau.
“I think that at least one could say that their inability or the fact that they lost seats in Ontario is probably the reason why it is a minority instead of the majority government.”
The Liberal Party ended up winning 69 seats, the largest amount in the province, with 49.6 percent of popular votes.
But the conservatives were not far behind, winning 53 seats and 44 percent of popular vote. It was a net gain for 16 seat conservatives and the loss of nine for the liberals. The five NDP seats in the province were annihilated.
The results seemed to challenge some projections. Éric Grenier, survey and elections analyst written by the writing bulletin and directs the CBC survey tracker, had projected the liberals to win 82 seats and conservatives 38.
“This was where the surprise entered, mainly in the York region in the Metropolitan Area of Toronto and in southwest Ontario. The conservatives beat their surveys in Ontario for a small amount, but their vote was more efficient than expected,” Grenier wrote.
The results in Ontario seemed very different from what they did during the Trudeau years, said Arnold. The liberals that this choice did it better in the Ottawa area, especially the seat of the conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in Carleton. And in some Toronto currents, his margins of victories were much larger than before, he said.
The liberals lost seats in GTA
The liberals obtained victories in places like Peterborough and the Bay of Quinte, parts of the province where they did better than in the last couple elections.
But there were other parts in the province in which they registered some great losses, even in region 905 and heads such as Brampton West, Cambridge, Markham-Unionville, Newmarket-Aurora and Vaughan-Woodbridge, all won by conservatives.
For example, liberal candidate Francesco Sorbara won three times under Trudeau in Vaughan-Woodbridge, but lost Monday for 20 percentage points, Arnold said. In addition, the liberal candidate of Brampton West, Kamal Khera, Minister of the Cabinet in the governments of Trudeau and Carney, lost in his driving, despite winning in 2021 for more than 20 points.
“So there are some very dramatic changes there,” he said.
As for political change, voters in that particular area may have been more sensitive to issues such as affordability and housing pressures in the last two years, issues that Pailievre had concentrated during the campaign and before, Arnold said.
“For many voters there, that probably surpassed the Trump factor when they were qualifying for their priorities,” said Arnold.
David Coletto, founder and CEO of Abacus Data, echoed that millennial and gene X voters in the Toronto metropolitan area whose mortgage payments increased substantially in the last years of the Trudeau government could have resorted to conservatives.
These problems may have been silenced when Trump was the main factor, but in the last two weeks of the campaign, based on the monitoring of Abacos, Trump concerns faded and gave the conservatives an opening to present the case of change, said Coletto.
The affordability and crime were two issues that imported many voters in that 905 region who worked against the liberals, he said.
He said that in many parts of the 905 area, there was the perception that crime, particularly car thefts, had gone out of control, and that was linked to the Trudeau years.
“And I think the conservatives in the last week and a half of the campaign really tried to focus on that,” said Coletto.
Boots vs. costumes
But there was also the opening of the dynamics of “Boots versus costumes” in Ontario that has become a political advantage for conservatives, he said.
The fact that conservatives won both monters of Windsor can be an indication of the slight realignment of the party: to obtain those working class sectors, private and unionized sector in the sectors of trades, manufacture and natural resources in their camp, said Coletto.
“The absolute devastation of the NDP really opened it,” he said. The GTA was an obstacle to liberals in some way, but conservatives achieved some important profits in other parts of the province. “
Arnold added that the liberals ate the NDP vote in many parts of the province, but there were not so many votes of the NDP to begin in 905, which harmed the liberals in terms of growth.
“The greatest dynamics of this campaign was the fall of the NDP. And in places where the fall of the NDP helped the liberals, as in Peterborough, that is a great night for them. But in places where there were not so many NDP or went more to the conservatives or separated uniformly, those are the places where I think they were more in the undo.”
Escape the votes to the left
Laura Stephenson, a professor of Political Science at Western University, said in some walks like London Fanshawe and Windsor West, in which the head of the PND lost to a conservative, probably divided votes on the left.
Before Carney becomes the leader, there may have been strong support to go to the head of the PND. In this case, it is likely that some stayed with the head of the NDP, but others went to the liberal candidates, she sad.
“So it was almost like a failure of coordination on the progressive side,” he said.
Stephenson also suggested that the Doug Ford factor should not be discarded for liberal challenges in the province.
“There are many people in Ontario who feel more conservative at this time,” he said. “Obviously, there are differences at the federal level, but you know, we have to give an account of the fact that there will be this more right reference level.”
