Election of the Day: Ontario

I don’t always cover subnational elections, but this one seems worth a thread. Ontario is of course roughly 39% of Canada, and Canada will have a national election later this year, so it’ll be tempting for Americans in particular to use the results to read the tea leaves for later this year. Two notes of caution about that. First, the incumbency situation is reversed, as the Doug Ford-led Progressive Conservatives have dominated Ontario politics since 2018. Second, the relationship between provincial and national politics (and provincial and national parties) is a great deal more tenuous than it is in the US; the provincial PC has outperformed their national counterparts in Ontario significantly recently, because the parties are, relative to US politics, understood by voters to be fundamentally distinct entities. This disconnect is evident in the apparent fate of the national and provincial Liberal parties; Ontario has made a slight recovery in polls recently but not enough to come particularly close to parity with Ford’s PC, while the national party has nearly eradicated their substantial polling deficit with Poilierve’s PC.

Ontario’s electoral system is essentially identical to Canada’s, right down to the riding size (there are 124 ridings in the Parliament of Ontario, 122 Ontario ridings in the House of Commons). This election is happening 15 months early, presumably because Doug Ford wanted to take advantage of his strong polling position. (It might also be to his benefit to hold the election while the Liberals are still in power nationally, which is less likely to be the case in 2026.) His avowed justification for dissolving parliament and triggering an election was that a clear mandate was needed to stand up to Trump’s tariff (and other) threats. This has given Ford some national prominence, in part because Trump’s second term began at a moment of unsettled leadership at the national level, leading some pundits to attempt to affix the moniker “Captain Canada” to him.

Polling suggests a third Ford victory is quite likely, although the Liberals have recovered a bit in polling, and the PCs are declining from their peak. Unfortunately for Ontario liberals, the swing away from conservatives has been considerably less sharp than it has been in Federal polling, and of course they’re out of time. PC is polling around 42 and trending down, Liberals around 30 and trending up, and NDP high teens and trending down. This looks remarkably similar to the 2022 result, with the percentages for the Liberals and the NDP flipped. Hard to imagine this won’t produce a solid majority for Ford if accurate, but of course a great deal hinges on the distribution of voters across ridings. Last time 40.5% gave Ford 67% of the seats. I’m sure there’s some Nate-Silver-10-years-ago style nerd doing seat projections out there for those willing to seek them out; links welcome.

The Liberals are led in this election by Bonnie-Michelle Teresa Bernadette Stack Sawarna Crombie, aka “Bonnie Crumble”, who has been party leader for 14 months. Prior to her ascending to this leadership position, she served as Mayor of Mississauga, the largest non-eponymous municipality in the Greater Toronto area. She has sought to distinguish herself from Trudeau and the national party, and perhaps weaken a strength of her suburban populist opponent, by opposing the implementation of a carbon tax. As with much of the rest of Canada, housing costs have been a major issue in this election. Summaries and links to housing platforms here; the three major parties all seem to combine a few good ideas with some meh ones. I’m confident we have some Ontarians or Ontario-adjacent readers who have more insight than I do; I hope you’ll chime in in comments.