Income and mayoral choice in Ward 21

In the previous post about the municipal elections in Toronto I concluded that Joe Mihevc's support in his successful campaign to be re-elected as councillor for Ward 21 was not affected by his involvement in the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way controversy. Instead it seemed that he was getting his support from the less affluent parts of the ward (many of which were most affected by the right-of-way), while his chief opponent, Shimmy Posen, was getting his from the more affluent areas.

There has been some talk about the results of the mayoral race reflecting increased disparities in income, so I thought I'd look at how income was related to the mayoral vote in Ward 21. My hypothesis was that Rob Ford, the successful candidate for mayor, would have won most of the subdivisions Mr. Posen did, and few of the subdivisions Mr. Mihevc won.

Mr. Ford did win a significantly^* larger proportion of the mayoral vote in subdivisions won by Mr. Posen than in subdivisions won by Mr. Mihevc -- 44% in Mr. Posen's subdivisions and 29% in Mr. Mihevc's. However, in the subdivisions won by Mr. Posen, Mr Ford was outpolled by another candidate, George Smitherman. Mr. Ford received 1,844 votes in those subdivisions, while Mr. Smitherman received 1,942.

Obviously Mr. Ford appealed to affluent voters more than he did to less affluent voters. However, the results in Ward 21 suggest his victory was not chiefly due to a main effect of income. Income probably had its effect in combination with some other variable.

^* I didn't use the raw vote counts for the statistical test, since almost any difference would have been significant. Instead I used a median test comparing the percentages of te vote Mr. Ford won in each subdivision (p < .01).

Actual Analysis

A streetcar named Doesn't Matter

I have just downloaded summaries of last Monday's Toronto municipal elections from the City of Toronto's open data site. A contentious issue in the ward, and a controversial issue throughout the city, has been the renovation of the streetcar line along St. Clair Avenue West. The incumbent councillor, Joe Mihevc, was blamed by many for problems with the renovation. Although he was re-elected, I wanted to see if the renovation had affected where he got his support.

Only two candidates, Mr. Mihevc and Shimmy Posen, won any of the polling subdivisions; Mr. Mihevc won 20 and Mr. Posen 10. My idea was that if the streetcar-line renovation had affected his support, Mr. Mihevc would have drawn his support from polling subdivisions away from St. Clair Ave.

On the map of the ward below, subdivisions won by Mr. Mihevc are shown in red and those won by Mr. Posen in blue. Subdivisions outside the ward are in grey. St. Clair Avenue is marked by the black lines extending beyond the borders of the ward.Clearly, Mr. Mihevc's support was strong along St. Clair Avenue. The variable that chiefly determined support was income, with Mr. Posen's strength almost entirely in the affluent neighbourhoods north of Nordheimer/Cedarvale Ravine, and Mr. Mihevc's chiefly in the south. However, Mr. Mihevc won some well-off subdivisions near St. Clair West as well. Despite all the problems created by the renovation of the streetcar line, problems which were raised by the successful mayoral candidate at an all-candidates' meeting in the heart of Mihevc territory just before the election, St. Clair West remained part of Joe Mihevc's stronghold.