Kathleen Wynne Concedes

This was a big shocker to many, but much less so to myself.  I actually always thought this might happen especially with the current polls.  While perhaps unprecedented in Ontario politics, a similar thing happened out here on the West Coast 17 years ago.  Ujjal Dosanjh’s NDP was trailing by over 40 points and polling roughly around where the Ontario Liberals are (although they are not as far back as opposition is divided into two camps instead of one) and he did a similar thing and his argument was to make sure there was some opposition, not have a complete sweep of the legislature.  Whether it worked or not is hard to say.  The NDP got decimated to 2 seats vs. the BC Liberals 77 seats, but its quite possible their internal polls at the time showed the party heading for 0 seats so maybe it saved these two seats.  It’s a very risky strategy and may or may not work.  On the one hand it might help in ridings with popular Liberal MPPs as people now feel they can safely vote for them without re-electing Wynne, but on the other hand many progressives who were planning to strategically vote Liberal to keep Ford out, might jump ship to the NDP so tough to say.  The next few days will be interesting.  It might help the NDP or maybe not, but cannot see it helping the PCs, although I don’t think the PCs will lose any support over this.  However if the Liberals decline further, it will mean less vote splitting thus hurting the PCs chances in several key ridings.  In terms of my projection of an NDP majority, yes I know its counterintuitive and I may change it on June 5th, but for now my gut still says the NDP will win this.  I think the voter efficiency is going on the assumption of a uniform swing which rarely happens.