Why Dalton McGuinty is worse off now than four years ago

Ontario and Manitoba are setting up for some closely contested elections in October.

But the last elections in the two provinces in 2007 were also supposed to go down to the wire, and in the end the incumbent governments beat their rivals by 10 points. Will the same thing happen in the fall?

Four months prior to the October 2007 election in Ontario, two polls by Ipsos-Reid and Environics indicated a neck-and-neck race between the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives, with about 40 per cent of Ontarians intending to vote for the governing Liberals and about 38 per cent expecting to vote for John Tory’s PCs.

But on election night, the Liberals bumped up their support to 42 per cent while that of the Progressive Conservatives tanked to only 32 per cent. Part of that swing was attributed to Tory’s disastrous campaign pledge to extend public funding to faith-based schools, a promise he had to back away from amid widespread opposition.

This election may be different. In order for Dalton McGuinty to win his third election, he will need an even more dramatic shift in support during the campaign.

You can read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post Canada website.

The four elections in Manitoba, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador are only three months away. The campaigns will start in two. So, while we are in dog days of summer in terms of polling and politics, things will rachet up very soon. I'm still working on getting the new models up and running for the provinces, and then once those four elections are completed the Saskatchewan campaign will be starting up. It should be an interesting two months.