Mayoral strongholds

Torontonians seem to have concluded about their recent mayoral election that the winner was the candidate of the suburbs. I thought a little more detail might help. Here we will look at the wards in which his support, and the support for the other two major candidates, was the strongest.

I did some exploratory analysis examining the percentages each candidate won of the vote in subdivisions, then confirmed it with sorts of the percentages of votes cast in each ward. I came up with four hypotheses I will be testing further:

1. Mr. Ford's support was strongest on the outskirts of the city. His support was strongest in wards 1, 2, 4, 31, and 49, all of which are pretty far from City Hall. All have the city limits as a boundary. Mr. Ford won 67% or more of the vote in these wards.

2. Joe Pantalone was the candidate of the west end of the old city of Toronto. His strongholds -- wards 14, 17, 18, and 19 -- clustered together in the west end. Mr. Pantalone took 20% of more of the vote in these wards.

3. George Smitherman was the candidate of money. Mr. Smitherman had strong support in both Forest Hill (wards 21 and 22) and Rosedale (ward 28).

4 Mr. Smitherman was also the candidate of the east end of the old City of Toronto. His support was strong in wards 30 and 32, which lie side by side along the eastern harbour and the lake. Mr. Smitherman took 50% or more of the vote in the wards in which he was strongest.

As I said, these are just hypotheses so far. I'll be souping up my data file, and then I'll be testing these hypotheses. More soon.

Actual Analysis website