Cautious Optimism for the Greens: Will Guelph become Ontario’s Fredericton South?

Checking the LISPOP (Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy, http://maps.lispop.ca/ontario_projections/), it lists the riding of Guelph as too close to call. Guelph is interesting because it is where the current leader of the Green Party of Ontario, Mike Schreiner, lives and is running as a candidate. Given collapse of the Liberal vote and the rise of an Any Body but Ford mood in Ontario and the nature of the riding itself, Schreiner has a good chance of becoming the first Green Party Member of the Ontario legislature.

In 2014, Liberal Liz Sandals won the riding with 41.5% of the vote, followed by the Progressive Conservative candidate, Anthony MacDonald with 20.8%, and then Green Mike Schreiner with 19.2%. The NDP came fourth with 17.7%. That Schreiner out polled the traditional third party in Ontario politics certainly shows that he has personal popularity and recognition in the riding. So, the indication is the Green Party has reasonable traction in Guelph. This is confirmed by a Guelph Mercury Tribune story Monday quoting a Mainstreet Research Poll from Sunday*, which reports the Green Party leader as “widening his lead” in Guelph, with “32.3 percent support in the riding” (https://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/8648520-greens-widen-guelph-lead-in-new-poll/)^.

What does this have to do with Fredericton South, which is a provincial riding in New Brunswick?  It’s the symmetry.

In the 2014 New Brunswick provincial election, Fredericton South elected a Green Party MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly), the first in the province. The Green candidate, David Coon, was also the leader of the Green Party of New Brunswick with strong personal recognition and popularity in the riding. Although, unlike Schreiner, he had not run before and in the 2010 provincial election, in the slightly differently distributed Fredericton-Silverwood riding, the Greens had placed fourth. Further to this the voter turnout in Fredericton South was significantly higher, 71%, than that in Guelph 56.8%# in the 2014 provincial elections ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredericton_South_(electoral_district), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredericton-Silverwood, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelph_(provincial_electoral_district)). In 2014, Coon took Fredericton South with 31% of the vote, the remaining was distributed between the PC (26.2%), Liberals (21.6%), the NDP (19.8%), and an independent (1.8%).

Both ridings include universities, the University of Guelph in Guelph and UNB-Fredericton and St. Thomas. More significantly, in both cases the candidates focused their efforts in the ridings rather than travelling extensively around the province. In the case of Mike Schreiner, since making an announcement in Toronto on May 24^th he has been in the riding actively campaigning with only two visits to Etobicoke and Kitchener (CBC. 2018. Where are the leaders? CBC’s the Campaigner May 24 to June 5). This is not entirely by choice, given that for a party such as the Greens the resources required to mount a campaign like that of the major parties are going to be scarcer. It is not just Schreiner’s attention to his riding as compared to the other party leaders that illustrates this strategy of putting lots of eggs into the most attractive basket. Looking at the Provincial party’s web-site the focus is specifically and overwhelmingly on the Guelph campaign (https://gpo.ca/news/). It is also the riding where Elizabeth May the leader of the federal Green Party spent a day campaigning.

As for New Brunswick, as I wrote in this blog back in 2014 right after that provincial election. “There really is no traction for third party representation in this province. … The former NDP leader Elizabeth Weir appears to have built success in winning her seat based on personal popularity and support, which is very similar to this time’s success of Green Party candidate David Coon. He appears popular in a riding that is home to two university campuses and the associated progressiveness that comes with that.”

So, while there are a lot of differences, there are also a great deal of similarities between Fredericton South in 2014 and Guelph in 2018.

As of May 6, things look quite promising for Mike Schreiner and the Greens in Guelph. It’s not slam-dunk territory, but cautious optimism territory. An earlier poll, on May 25 had Schreiner with 31.7% support, meaning in the interim support has only increased by 1%, and as I noted above the last successful candidate won with much closer to 50%. What determines the Greens success will be how the remaining 70% breaks between the other three parties (noting of course that there are 8 candidates running, which is two more than 2011, the additions being the Ontario Party and the None of the Above Party). A three-way split of that 70% would have Schreiner winning.  On the one hand, if the Liberal vote has collapsed in the riding, where that support goes or even if it bothers to turn out will have a significant impact. On the other hand, for NDP supporters it depends on whether the provincial surge in NDP support has strengthened their resolve to stick with the party or if commitment to an “anybody-but-Ford” position encourages them to vote for the leading non-PC party. It is going to be very interesting to see what happens tomorrow. Guelph might make history, just as Fredericton South did in 2014.

*Unfortunately, my funds being what they are and the election being so close, I declined to pay the subscription fee to access the actual poll. Next election, I’ll get in early to insure my money’s worth).

^ Sample size was 783 people with a margin of error of +/- 3.48%

# That’s if we consider the number of eligible voters to have not changed significantly. Wikipedia doesn’t give Guelph’s eligible voter numbers for 2014, and I’m too lazy to go look for it elsewhere.