In every provincial election dating back to 1987, the party that won Kitchener Centre – or its closest pre-1999 equivalent, the former Kitchener riding – also picked up the most seats across the province.
Due to the riding’s unique ‘bellwether’ status, many observers consider it a key battleground in the still-close fight to determine who will form Ontario’s next government.
So with only 10 days remaining before the June 12 election, what does the local political landscape tell us about the provincial one?
“Right now, it’s too close to call,” says Barry Kay, a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Since that same 1987 election, Kay has used a blend of various professional polls to project the outcome of provincial elections.
Analysis done by the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy (LISPOP) using Kay’s system shows that Kitchener Centre isn’t the only local riding where it’s tough to predict who will win the election.
Kitchener-Waterloo, Perth-Wellington and Brant are also in that category – but while Kitchener-Waterloo is believed to be a race primarily between the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives, Kay says the Liberals and PCs are the main parties battling for votes in the other three ridings.
LISPOP gives the PCs strong leads in Kitchener-Conestoga, Wellington-Halton Hills and Brant, with Cambridge leaning in the same direction.
Guelph is the only local riding in which LISPOP’s methods have a clear Liberal lead.
Provincially, Kay predicts voters will return a mostly familiar-looking minority government to Queen’s Park, with few seat changes.
“We have the Liberals with a tiny lead at the moment, in terms of a couple of seats,” he says.
Part of the reason for that, Kay says, could be because of the “lackluster” campaigns being run by each of the three main parties, with voter intentions only likely to change if one of them slips up.
