Key to Ford’s win was his insistence Trump’s tariff threat, and not his record, was the most important issue in the provincial election.
A News Commentary from Data Shows, a professional, non-partisan data gathering venue based in Ontario, Canada
Posted March 3rd, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Doug Ford successfully bills himself as the strongest one to defend Ontario workers and residents in general against Trump tariffs
Ontario’s unemployment is higher than the national rate. Healthcare is getting worse, schools are in neglect. Terrible housing starts have made life unaffordable. Retail sales are down and people are leaving. Ontario has become a have-not province receiving federal equalization payments.
That’s Doug Ford’s legacy. He should have been defeated on it. But he saved himself by maneuvering away from his record and encouraging anti-PC voters to use their ballot in the most inefficient way.
Ford diverted voter focus from his record to Trump’s threat
During the Ontario election, Doug Ford took his ‘Canada Is Not For Sale’ campaign to Washington D.C. and Trump’s favourite cable network Fox News
Key to Ford’s win was his insistence Trump’s tariff threat, and not his record, was the most important issue in the provincial election.
His diversion was fueled by trips to Washington, wall-to-wall Trump coverage and Canadians’ general disorientation from watching a long-term ally pivot into an attacker.
And in federal politics Trump’s tariff threat is a top issue, according to surveys of Canadians. But Ontario election polls consistently showed affordability and healthcare were the top provincial election issues.
Our EKOS/Impact Strategies poll released February 12 found 36 per cent said affordability was the top election issue while healthcare was the top for 28 per cent.
Just 10 per cent of Ontarians agreed with Ford that Trump’s tariff threat was the top provincial election issue.
Despite Ontarians’ actual priorities, Ford had good success in diverting the discussion onto Trump and away from his record on healthcare and affordability. Even his “hot mic” moment, when he admitted he favoured Trump as recently as the last U.S. election, helped draw discussion away from Ford’s poor record in government.
Ford also enjoyed good success in selecting as his primary opponent the party most inefficient in threatening PC seats.
Ontario Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals finish third behind Ford’s PCs and Marrit Stiles’ NDP
Liberal vote inefficiency is not a new phenomenon. In the 2011 federal campaign, the NDP and Liberals both won 25 per cent support but the NDP won 22 seats and the Liberals 11.
In the 2022 Ontario election, the NDP and Liberals both received 24 per cent support, but the NDP won 31 seats and the Liberals’ eight. On Thursday night the NDP won 27 seats on 19 per cent support, the same level the Liberals attained in 2018, yielding just seven MPPs.
Data Shows wrote about Ontario Liberal vote inefficiency months ago and predicted the Liberals were heading for exactly the electoral disaster that came.
PC strategists knew this too. And they knew more PCs would win if anti-PC voters could be drawn to the Liberals and away from the NDP.
The PCs never ran an online ad campaign against the NDP until just before the election, even though poll averages in the months before their ad campaign launch put the NDP ahead of the OLP (see below).
Within days of Crombie’s selection, the PCs rolled out anti-Liberal ads. These had a dual effect: they both drove up voters’ awareness of Crombie and their negative assessments of her. They both boosted the idea the third place Liberals were Ford’s primary threat and made its leader unelectable.
The PCs’ advertising gave the Liberals and their leader the exposure they could not pay for themselves, helping persuade voters the PCs’ most inefficient opponent was their nearest threat.
A strategy set and played against an opponent beset by events
Ontario’s NDP Leader Marit Stilesholds on to ‘Official Oppositon’ status.
After months of anti-Liberal ads, Bonnie Crombie was well-known but un-liked while NDP leader Marit Stiles was liked but unknown.
Due to a series of internal events, an NDP advertising campaign to boost Stiles’ exposure was delayed until last fall. Had such a campaign been able to boost NDP numbers above the Liberals’ the PC seat loss very certainly would have both been steeper.
The NDP also struggled with planning paralysis caused by an inability to decisively address internal events. As a result, the NDP campaign lacked a story contrasting Ontario’s decline under Ford with a story of how to get the province back on track. The PCs had a strategy and let it run; events left the NDP fighting back with improvised tactics.
The result was a PCs strategy generally successful in its two main goals: to divert attention from the PC record; to draw anti-PC voters to the inefficient Liberals.
Marit Stiles’ performance, MPP incumbency, better finances and a stronger ground game have allowed the NDP to continue as official opposition for the next four years.
Now Stiles has a second chance to create a story and a strategy that ensures in the next election they, not the PCs, pick their opponent and the campaign’s central issue.
About Data Shows – Some things actually matter. And when they do, effective people use data to guide their actions and evaluate their results. Ineffective people hide the data.
Data Shows brings reliable data and data analysis from quality sources like StatsCan, Bank of Canada, CMHC, CIHI, elections commissions and others.
Data Shows’ editor is Tom Parkin. Contact me with interesting data, data chart or a guest piece you’d like to submit to Data Shows: tparkin@impact-strategies.ca
A related Ontario electon commentary by Doug Draper at Niagara At Large can be viewed by clicking on – Most Of Niagara Stays NDP Orange While Ford Wins A Third Big Majority | Niagara At Large
NIAGARA AT LARGE Encourages You To Join The Conversation By Sharing Your Views On This Post In The Space Following The Bernie Sanders Quote Below.
“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders
Niagara At Large 
Doug Fords election cost the Ontario taxpayers big time and his excuse to say that he needed a mandate because of Trumps tariffs was laughable when he already had it. I believe Mr. Ford realized that if these tariffs were to take place his popularity would tank because of the high unemployment that would come with it and that is just a fact. Add that to the healthcare problems, the greenbelt and the Ontario Place scandal just to name a few and you have a politician that would do anything to win. With the auto sector in shambles because of the tariffs an election 18 months from now would be a fatal blow and he knew it. His snap election was a quick way to fix the problem and the Ontario voters fell for it. Too bad …………… now we have 4 more years and nobody to blame but ourselves.
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