In this post, I examine the results in four east-end wards, Wards 29 and 30, Toronto-Danforth, and Wards 31 and 32, Beaches-East York. All four wards selected John Tory as their first choice as mayor (though by differing margins), and all four returned their incumbent councillors. Only in Ward 30 was there an interesting council race.
I’m about to go on a short vacation, so this will be the last of my posts looking at the poll-level results of the last Toronto municipal election for about two weeks. I still have to get to Wards 33 and 34, Don Valley East, and the 10 wards in Scarborough.
Ward 29
Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 29
Ward 29, the part of Toronto-Danforth north of Danforth Avenue, stuck with first-term left-leaning councillor Mary Fragedakis, who won every poll. Fragedakis won in 2010, beating right-leaning candidate Jane Pitfield with 41.8% of the vote to Pitfield’s 27.9%. Pitfield, previously the councillor for Ward 26, was backed by the retiring councillor Case Ootes. In 2014, Fragedakis won 59.3% of the vote; second-place Dave Andrae took 24.7% of the vote. I did not create a map for the ward race.
John Tory came in first place in Ward 29, netting 42.1% of the vote and taking 17 of 23 polls. Olivia Chow came in second place, with 32.1% of the vote, but was the second-place candidate in nearly every poll. Doug Ford came in a distant third place, but won in four polls – all near the Pape/Cosburn intersection, where there are many mid-rise rental apartment buildings. Tory did best in Poll 001, which is isolated from the rest of the ward, separated by the Don River, Don Valley Parkway and the GO Richmond Hill corridor railway line, and really part of the Rosedale neighbourhood otherwise covered by Ward 27 (where Tory did exceedingly well).
Ward 30
Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 30
John Tory came in first place in Ward 30, but Olivia Chow came in a close second place; less than 300 votes separated the two mayoral candidates. Doug Ford came in a very distant third place, taking less than 15% of the vote and no polls. Interestingly, John Tory came in first place in the Withrow Park neighbourhood closest to Danforth Avenue, while Chow came in first place in nearly all polls east of Pape/Carlaw in Leslieville.
But more interesting was the council race. In 2010, centrist Liz West, a news broadcaster, narrowly lost to long-time incumbent Paula Fletcher. Fletcher won with only 45.4% of the vote, 259 votes ahead of West.
When author, broadcaster, and community organizer Jane Farrow, a founder of Jane’s Walk and executive assistant to Ward 33 councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, put her name forward as a candidate, there was some backlash against her bid: why run against a strong progressive councillor? Would the vote be split, allowing the relatively right-leaning Liz West to take the seat? Though Farrow’s candidacy was supported by others on the centre and left; some residents were encouraged by her community advocacy and were looking for a fresh face on city council. (I would have been pleased with either Fletcher or Farrow representing Ward 30.)
As it turns out, Paula Fletcher, backed by the endorsements of Torontoist, NOW Magazine, the Toronto Star and the Labour Council, increased her vote share in 2014, taking 49.6% of the vote. Liz West lost votes, taking only 27.7% of the vote; Farrow came in third place with 20.0%.
The feared vote-split did not happen. Fletcher came in first place in all but one poll, where Fletcher and West tied. West came in second place in every other poll, except one, Poll 034, where Farrow came in second place.
This was the most surprising of the maps that I created so far.
Poll results of the council race in Ward 30
Ward 31
Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 31
Ward 31 was the only one of these four wards where Doug Ford came in second place instead of Olivia Chow. Tory came in first place in Ward 31, but only with 36.9% of the vote. This was well below his city-wide victory with 40.3% of the vote. Ford and Chow nearly tied for second place, with 30.4% and 30.0% of the vote, respectively.
Ward 31 includes the neighbourhood improvement area (previously known as “priority neighbourhoods”) of Crescent Town; in which both Ford and Chow came in first place in certain polls. As seen earlier, Ford did best in TCHC properties and in seniors’ homes; Ford’s best result was in Poll 021, a large TCHC complex on Lumsden Avenue.
Incumbent progressive councillor Janet Davis won with 61.8% of the vote; her closest competitor was George Papadakis, who netted only 14.7% of the vote. Davis won every poll by a comfortable margin; I did not create a map of the council results.
Ward 32
Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 32
Ward 32 was the only one of the four east-end wards where John Tory won with a majority of the votes; he took 52.4% of of the vote. Olivia Chow came in second place with 32.3%, Ford came in a distant third with 13.3%. Chow won 7 polls, in east Leslieville and near Danforth Avenue; Tory won every poll in the affluent Beach neighbourhood by at least a 20% margin over Olivia Chow, who came in second place in every poll south of Kingston Road. Ford only one poll, a long term care home on Main Street.
In 2010, Mary-Margaret McMahon crushed the incumbent councillor Sandra Bussin, taking the ward with 65.1% of the vote to Bussin’s 25.8%. In the 2010 election, local issues included condo development of Queen Street in the Beach neighbourhood, the awarding of a controversial food-service contract in local waterfront parks, and petty frivolous spending. McMahon ran as a centrist, but was opposed to Ford’s agenda in the 2010-2014 term.
McMahon was re-elected in 2014, winning 60.9% of the vote. Bussin attempted a comeback, but came in a distant second place with 17.6% of the vote. Again, I did not create a map of the council race, as McMahon did well in every poll.
Sean Marshall 