London’s a progressive city — will we elect a progressive council?

At the provincial and federal levels, Londoners have been voting for NDP, Liberal and Green candidates in significant numbers. But will Londoners elect a city council that is similarly progressive?

If we had ranked ballots, as we did in the 2018 election, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. Voters could rank their top three choices and those preferences (whether for more progressive or more conservative candidates) would count through multiple rounds of voting until a candidate received 50%+1 of the continuing ballots (or only two candidates remain). With a ranked ballot, the majority of voters are likely to be satisfied with the electoral outcome.

But with the first-past-the-post system the provincial Conservatives forced London to switch back to, such majority mandates are less likely. In wards with many candidates, it’s possible that a candidate will be elected with less than 30% of the vote, which happened, for example, in 2014 when a candidate was elected with 28.3% of the vote under first-past-the-post.

One way of understanding the political priorities of voters at the municipal level is to see how votes cast in federal or provincial elections are distributed at the ward level (see, for example, Lucas (2020)). By interpolating the polling division results on election day into the municipal ward polling divisions, we can get a sense of the political priorities of the residents in different areas of the city.

Here’s an overall look at each ward.

The table shows vote shares by federal party, 2021 election day votes, interpolated into 2018 ward boundaries.

NDP 2021 federal vote share by ward polling division

The map shows the election day vote share for NDP candidates in the 2021 federal election, interpolated into the 2018 ward polling divisions. Note that the scale on the legend is different from the Green map.

NDP support is especially high in Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 11 and 13, with relatively strong areas in the more urban parts of Wards 12 and 14. NDP support is relatively lower in Wards 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10, although some areas within those wards have quite a few NDP voters.

Liberal 2021 federal vote share by ward polling division

The map shows the election day vote share for Liberal candidates in the 2021 federal election, interpolated into the 2018 ward polling divisions. Note that the scale on the legend is different from the Green and NDP map.

Liberal support is distributed throughout almost all wards, with notable exceptions in parts of Wards 1, 2 and 3. Liberal support is strongest in the North and West, especially in Wards 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Conservative 2021 federal vote share by ward polling division

The map shows the election day vote share for Conservative candidates in the 2021 federal election, interpolated into the 2018 ward polling divisions. Note that the scale on the legend is different from the Green, NDP and Liberal maps.

The Conservatives have relatively high support in the South and West, especially in the rural areas of Wards 9, 12 and 14. There are significant areas of support in Wards 5, 7 and 8; and there are noticeable areas of relative weakness in Ward 4, Ward 11, Ward 12 and Ward 13.

This is probably a good time to say: land doesn’t vote, people do. Keep that in mind when looking over the maps, which show vote shares and not total votes.

The map shows the election day vote share for two Green candidates in the 2021 federal election, interpolated into the 2018 ward polling divisions.

Since there were only candidates in London North Centre and Elgin-Middlesex-London, and not in the other two electoral districts, there are a lot of light-shaded areas. Relative Green strength in Wards 4, 6 and 13.

People’s Party 2021 federal vote share by ward polling division

The map shows the election day vote share for PPC candidates in the 2021 federal election, interpolated into the 2018 ward polling divisions. Note that the scale on the legend is different from the Green, NDP, Liberal and Conservative maps.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the areas of relative strength for the PPC are the inverse of the Liberals: parts of Wards 1, 2 and 3.