What fate awaits the OLP under Wynne or Pupatello?

Barring a big surprise next weekend, either Kathleen Wynne or Sandra Pupatello will be the new leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and premier of the province. How might they do in the next election?

I wrote about this for The Huffington Post Canada today, and I invite you to take a look. In the article, I spell out how I think it could play out. Here, let's take a look at what the numbers show - or at least what can be done with them.

The most recent data about who Ontarians like for the leader comes from a December 17 poll from Forum Research. It asked who Ontarians thought would make the best leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. Gerard Kennedy placed first with 36%, followed by Wynne at 23% and Pupatello at 20%. No other candidate hit double-digits. The poll also broke the numbers down by voting intentions, giving us an idea of what supporters of other parties think of the race.

Let's run a hypothetical exercise using those numbers to determine the potential support Wynne and Pupatello could draw from other parties. Forum did not disclose how many respondents said "I don't know" or "None of the above", but from the sample sizes we can estimate that number.

Kathleen Wynne was the favourite choice of 10% of NDP voters (20% of NDP voters who expressed an opinion, but 10% of the entire pool of NDP supporters) and 6% of Tories. She was also the favourite of 16% of Green voters and 10% of voters who said they intended to support an other party. In a best case scenario where Wynne is able to draw all of those voters over to the Liberals, and using the current Ontario poll averages as a base, we get the following outcome:

WYNNE VICTORY SCENARIO

Liberals - 33.5%, 46 seats
Progressive Conservatives - 32.1%, 35 seats
New Democrats - 27.4%, 26 seats
Greens - 6.2%, 0 seats
Others - 0.8%, 0 seats

Wynne draws away a good deal of support from the New Democrats - and even a few Tories. It keeps the Liberals in power, but makes reliance on another party for survival all the more important. Taking votes from the Greens also helps the Wynne Liberals quite a bit.

Pupatello is not so fortunate. Her numbers among PC voters are the same - she takes 6% of their supporters - but she only attracts 8% of New Democrats and 3% of Greens. That makes it a bit more difficult for her to put the Liberals over the top, which she does by a hair:

PUPATELLO VICTORY SCENARIO

Liberals - 32.2%, 44 seats
Progressive Conservatives - 32.1%, 36 seats
New Democrats - 27.7%, 27 seats
Greens - 7.2%, 0 seats
Others - 0.8%, 0 seats

One of the problems here is that the PC vote is pretty much locked in - only 28% said they thought one of the Liberal candidates would be a good option to lead that party, compared to 49% of New Democrats and 60% of Liberals. It was almost as if the vast majority of Tories would not even consider the question. That bars the door to Pupatello somewhat, as her appeal among New Democrats is more limited.

Nevertheless, in both of these scenarios the Liberals survive. That is a far cry from where they are in the polls right now. But what if things take a turn for the worst? Who could salvage things best?

This is a bit trickier to determine, and requires an even bigger assumption to be made. For the sake of the exercise, let us assume that if Wynne wins, the OLP supporters who said they preferred Pupatello decide to vote for another party, and if Pupatello wins, the Wynne OLP voters jump ship. These can be portioned out according to how PC, NDP, and Green voters considered the race, the assumption being that OLP voters who like a certain candidate probably agree more with the supporters of other parties who also like that candidate. It is a crude way to go about it, but I think it is the best we can do under the circumstances.

Contrary to province-wide opinion, Pupatello was the second choice among Liberal voters behind Kennedy, rather than Wynne. That means that a Wynne victory pushes 16% of OLP supporters to other parties. 52% of them go to the New Democrats, 39% of them to the Tories, and 4% apiece to the Greens and other parties. That results in:

WYNNE COLLAPSE SCENARIO

Progressive Conservatives - 35.8%, 57 seats
New Democrats - 32.7%, 37 seats
Liberals - 22.8%, 13 seats
Greens - 7.6%, 0 seats
Others - 1.1%, 0 seats

The Tories win a majority government while the NDP is vaulted to Official Opposition status. The Liberals are reduced to a rump. This is not an unthinkable scenario, as if Wynne comes out of the gate and trips those left-of-centre OLP voters could easily move over to the NDP. This happened federally as Liberal supporters saw that the NDP became the more viable anti-Conservative option. And coming from the centre-left of the party, Wynne pushes more voters over to Tim Hudak as well.

PUPATELLO COLLAPSE SCENARIO

Progressive Conservatives - 35.2%, 55 seats
New Democrats - 32.1%, 36 seats
Liberals - 23.7%, 16 seats
Greens - 8.0%, 0 seats
Others - 1.1%, 0 seats

If Pupatello wins and she falls flat on her face, the 13% of OLP voters who consider themselves Wynne supporters abandon the party. 48% go to the NDP, 31% go to the PCs, 16% go to the Greens, and 5% to the other parties. That still delivers the PCs a majority, but only just, and the rump the Liberals are reduced to is somewhat larger. This is also a plausible scenario, as Pupatello is probably less likely to lose centrist and centre-right OLP supporters than Wynne would, which might make her seem like a more viable anti-Hudak option than a Wynne-led party that is collapsing.

This exercise shows the risks and rewards that come with a Wynne or Pupatello leadership. Wynne can probably attract more support from the left, putting them ahead of the Tories, who are relatively solid. She potentially has more upside. But by pushing the party to the left, she might make the choice to jump over to the NDP easier than under Pupatello, meaning a Wynne collapse could be worse for the Liberals than a collapse under Pupatello.

All of this assumes the status quo, however. If Hudak's campaign falls apart, Pupatello might be better placed to scoop up those disillusioned PC voters than Wynne. If Andrea Horwath's campaign collapses, disappointed NDP voters may be more willing to cast their ballot for the Wynne Liberals than they would a Pupatello-led party.

But what about Kennedy? Polls show he is more widely liked than either Pupatello or Wynne, even if the OLP itself is not all that keen on him. If he does pull off an upset next weekend, what could happen then?

KENNEDY VICTORY SCENARIO

Kennedy scored very well among NDP voters in the Forum poll. He pulls 23% of NDP votes to the OLP. He also draws 9% of Tories and 18% of Greens.

Liberals - 38.6%, 60 seats
Progressive Conservatives - 31.0%, 29 seats
New Democrats - 23.4%, 18 seats
Greens - 6.1%, 0 seats
Others - 0.9%, 0 seats

His upside among PC voters is still rather limited, but he completely erases the gains the New Democrats have made since the last election. He gives the Liberals a majority government. These might be fairy-tale numbers due to Kennedy's name recognition alone (Hudak and Horwath are also well-known at this point, dulling his potential upside), but it is hard to argue that Kennedy wouldn't stand the better chance in a snap election than Pupatello or Wynne. If you have to spend the first two weeks of a campaign introducing yourself, you will be two weeks behind the other leaders.

Of course, this exercise is highly hypothetical and makes plenty of assumptions that may or may not be warranted. But the results do make a lot of intuitive sense. Unless Wynne or Pupatello can find some support across the aisle, we will probably find out sooner rather than later how they will do.

Couillard favoured in PLQ race

Over the weekend, La Presse reported on a poll done by CROP on the PLQ leadership race in Quebec. The results were not surprising, but did show that Philippe Couillard is the odds-on favourite to win it. It also showed that a Couillard-led Liberal Party could oust the PQ from government.

Since CROP's last poll taken Dec. 3-10, the Parti Québécois and Liberals have traded five points, with the PQ dropping to 31% and the Liberals increasing to 30%. The CAQ was up two points to 27%, while Québec Solidaire was down two points to 8%. Another 4% said they would vote for another party.

These results are virtually identical to the last election. CROP did not release regional data, so a seat projection is not possible. We can safely assume, however, that the seat breakdown would also be virtually identical to the last election on these numbers.

The game changes dramatically with Couillard at the helm of the Liberals, as he boosts the PLQ to 36%, taking three points from the PQ and two from the CAQ (and one from the magic of rounding). Because of their generally lower numbers among francophones, the Liberals can do less with this amount of support than the PQ but this would likely deliver a slim majority to the PLQ.

Raymond Bachand also improves things for the Liberals, picking up one point to increase the party's support to 31%. The CAQ gains two to hit 29% and the PQ falls three points to 28%. That is a bit of an odd result - why would the PQ lose support to the CAQ if Bachand becomes leader of the PLQ? It could just be a statistical anomaly or respondents changing their mind mid-stream for no particular reason, but it could also be possible that Bachand (a former sovereigntist) pulls a few voters from the Parti Québécois and pushes a few Liberals to the CAQ. That might be reading a bit too much into the numbers, though.

Pierre Moreau is a drag on Liberal fortunes, decreasing their support to 29% (a point made up by Québec Solidaire, of course). Broadly speaking, the Moreau and Bachand scenarios are similar enough to current voting intentions to conclude that neither of them does much to change the political landscape in the province, unlike Couillard.

But is Philippe Couillard just the latest shiny new leader that Quebecers like but will eventually reject? François Legault was supposed to be Premier by now instead of leading the third party in the National Assembly. His novelty quickly wore off once he became a politician again - a situation that could repeat itself if Couillard takes over the party. It would be less likely to occur under Bachand, who is a sitting MNA and, as former finance minister, already well known as a politician.

That is not to say that Couillard is an unknown - he isn't. Out of the three candidates, he had the lowest number of people saying they did not know him at 8%. Bachand was an unknown to 13% while Pierre Moreau was unknown to 47%. One of these things is not like the other.

The numbers are little different among PLQ supporters: 8% don't know Couillard, 11% don't know Bachand, and 44% don't know Moreau.

Worse for Moreau, however, is that those who know him are mostly just familiar with his name. Fully 54% of PLQ supporters said they knew Couillard's history and the ideas he defends, while 43% said the same of Bachand. Only 9% said they knew that much about Moreau, compared to 47% of PLQ supporters who said they know just his name. That number was also high for Couillard (39%) and Bachand (46%), but they are more intimately known by a much larger proportion of the population.

This speaks to how much of a long-shot Moreau is in this race - it really is between Couillard and Bachand. And both appear to be good options for the party, as 65% of all Quebecers have a good opinion of Couillard while 52% have a good opinion of Bachand. Only 36% have a good opinion of Moreau, mostly because 47% don't know who he is. Bachand is a bit more of a divisive candidate, undoubtedly due to his recent political history, as 35% have a bad opinion of him, compared to 27% for Couillard. Among Liberal supporters, Couillard splits 84% good to 8% bad opinion, not unlike Bachand's 77% to 12% ratio.

Couillard is generally seen as the person who embodies change, honesty, and action, while Bachand is the good economic administrator (according to another set of questions). Both perceptions are good for winning elections, but Couillard's is probably what can win him a leadership race.

And that is what people expect to happen. 48% of Quebecers think Couillard will win, compared to only 18% for Bachand and 5% for Moreau. That changes little among Liberals, as 46% think Couillard will win while 23% give Bachand the better odds.

Either way, they don't want an election. Only one-in-three Liberal voters would want the next leader to force the downfall of the Marois government, the majority preferring that the Charbonneau Commission finish its work. That puts us in 2014 for the next election, which seems to be the most likely outcome at this stage.

By then, Couillard or Bachand will have had a year to get comfortable in the job and for Quebecers to get a good idea of what kind of Premier they might be. They generally like what they see right now, but there's no telling what they will think in a year's time.