Reposted with permission from The Calgary Manifesto.
It has been a busy week with various other projects, it seems this blog is becoming a productive way to procrastinate on school. That being said, I’ve completed the rest of the Toronto Danforth mapping:
At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be any significant change between 2008 and 2011 in NDP vote support, but the initial visual is deceiving. The two maps are built on different vote scales, so the darker orange on the 2011 map is at least 10% stronger support than in 08. An initial qualitative assessment would conclude that the support patterns are largely inverted to the LPC, indicated that gains in Danforth in 2011 came at the expense of the Liberal Party. As Elections Canada will likely be using the same polls for the ByElection, this provides an opportunity for use to quantify a possible vote shift back to the Libs. A northward march for the NDP, and a southward march for the CPC may leave the LPC with nowhere left to go.
The strongest growth areas can be seen on the western edge of the riding, and on the eastern edge, about halfway up. I wish I had the demographics broken down for the ridings, because that growth is definitely on the upper edge of the curve. I’d be curious as to the demographic classes which saw an above average break for the NDP. Floating center left voters may be valuable in the coming years. For those with a statistical inclination, ByElections are great opportunities to explore electoral dynamics, as you can run calculations using identical poll numbers. If I survive this semester, Danforth will be a fun race to examine indepth.
If all goes well, I’ll add the provincial breakdowns as well, but we’ll see. Hopefully the next post will be more than just a cursory look.
Toronto Danforth Debates - All Candidates Meeting 