The Ontario provincial campaign is shaping up to be one of the most interesting campaigns in recent political history. It features two sharply contradictory policy visions: an austerity/minimal government model versus a progressive, active-state intervention model.

Superimposed on that stark choice are the twin factors of regime fatigue and ethics — both of which are confounding voters’ decision-making in ways which make the outcome of this race highly uncertain. They’re also making the job of pollsters more challenging.

First, the highlights: Our polling shows the Liberals with a clear and possibly growing lead. They have opened up a seven-point lead on Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives, while the hapless (for now) NDP has imploded due to leader Andrea Horwath’s decision to pull the plug on a budget that normally would have been seen as quite attractive to NDP supporters.

Horwath’s party has cratered since the near-tie with the Liberals it enjoyed before the writ was dropped. Flummoxed NDP voters have fled to other parties and to the undecided camp — which is unusually large this time. This high level of indecision reflects the challenge for voters trying to weigh their “throw the bums out” instincts with deep wariness of another neo-common-sense revolution led by the somewhat underwhelming Tim Hudak. All of this sets the stage for an extremely tight contest between the Liberals and the PCs.

So how about those conflicting polls? First of all, we don’t comment on our competitors; we believe they’re all very competent professionals trying their best to get this right. We will, however, say that we’re very confident that the modest but significant Liberal lead is real.

First, we believe strongly in the advantages of covering all portions of the population (land line and cellphone-only households, online and offline). We also continue to believe in the importance of sampling with known probabilities from a frame which includes all of the eligible voters. We also note that some of the indicators we track where we know the ‘real’ number (and no one at this point knows the ‘real’ vote intention numbers) show comforting correspondence with external reality. For example, our sample reveals 2011 voting behaviour which looks like the 2011 election.

The Liberals have opened up a sizeable lead among those aged 45 to 64. Whether this represents a sustained pattern of baby boomers shifting to the Liberals or is merely a blip remains to be seen.

Our current polling is a pretty basic tracking method which does a good job of measuring the vote intentions of all eligible voters. However, it doesn’t shed nearly enough light on the question of who will actually turn out to vote. Voter turnout and get-out-the-vote efforts will be critical to understanding the outcome of this election. Our next polls will begin to incorporate diagnostic tools that allow us to forecast the outcome (as we did very successfully in the last Ontario election).

Our polling has shown clear and stable patterns. Within those patterns, we have never seen the Liberals behind. Within our margin of error, the Liberal lead could be as narrow as a couple of points — but we do not find anything resembling a PC lead.

One of the failures of Mr. Hudak’s 2011 campaign was his inability to connect with foreign-born voters. More than two years later, he seems to have made little headway. Indeed, the Ontario Liberals hold a decisive 18-point lead among those who were born outside Canada.

In a rather significant finding, the Liberals have opened up a sizeable lead among those aged 45 to 64. A point we have reiterated time and time again is that younger voters — particularly those under 45 — see a much lower turnout on Election Day. For this reason, the two key groups to watch in this election will be baby boomers (those aged 45 to 64) and seniors (age 65 and up). While the Liberals continue to trail the PCs among the latter group, they now hold an advantage with the former. Whether this represents a sustained pattern of baby boomers shifting to the Liberals or is merely a blip remains to be seen.

Regionally, the Liberals lead quite handily in the core Greater Toronto Area (GTA), as well as Northeast and Central Ontario. The Liberals and PCs are neck-and-neck in both the suburban regions of the GTA and Ottawa/Eastern Ontario. Southwest Ontario is a tight three-way race, with no party standing out as a clear winner or loser.

The Liberals continue to hold a daunting lead among the university-educated (which has not widened despite Mr. Hudak’s plan to cut funding for education) and have closed the gap on the PCs in terms of the college vote, perhaps (although this is pure speculation) as a result of the Liberals’ focus on job-training programs. The PCs hold a small and statistically insignificant lead among men, but they are not competitive among women.

On a final note, we would like to comment on the unusually high proportion of respondents who have indicated that they intend to vote for “another” party (i.e., not Liberal, PC, NDP or Green), which now stands at five per cent — more than three times the 2011 election result. We do not believe this figure represents real support and we suspect these results will not translate into more votes — let alone seats — for fringe parties and independent candidates.

Rather, we believe these findings are reflective of deeply frustrated voters who are not particularly enthused with any of the party options and are simply opting for “none of the above”.

Frank Graves is the founder and president of EKOS Research.

A note on methodology:

This study was conducted using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator.

In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline-only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households. This methodology is not to be confused with the increasing proliferation of non-probability opt-in online panels which have recently been incorrectly reported in major national media with inappropriate margin of error estimates.

The field dates for this survey are May 13-15, 2014. In total, a random sample of 1,111 Ontario residents aged 18 and over responded to the survey (including a sub-sample of 910 decided voters). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as sex, age, education and region). All the data have been statistically weighted by gender, age, and education to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Ontario according to Census data.

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