Author: Sean Marshall

In this post, I take a look at how the good people of Wards 7 and 8 voted in the 2014 Toronto municipal election. Wards 7 and 8, located in North York, straddle the Jane-Finch neighbourhood. Ward 8 extends east to Dufferin Street and includes York University, while Ward 7 extends west to the Humber River.

To say that I am disappointed by these election results, particularly in Ward 7, would be an understatement. Both wards voted overwhelmingly for Doug Ford for mayor. Ward 7 returned Giorgio Mammoliti to office.

Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 7

In Ward 7, every poll voted for Doug Ford by at least a 20% margin. Ford won 65.7% of all votes cast for mayor, one of his best ward-level results.

At least the results in Ward 8 were a bit more interesting. Along with Ward 17, it was one of only two where the winner, John Tory, came in third place. While over 60% of electors in Ward 8 voted for Doug Ford, two polls thought differently. Poll 007, York University, voted for Olivia Chow; Ford came in third place there. In Poll 021, a small poll located in a senior’s home, Chow and John Tory tied for first. In two more polls, Ford won by narrow margins; Poll 020, the townhouses adjacent to York University (Chow came in second), and Poll 034, new condos built near Downsview Station (where Tory came a close second).

Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 8

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Map of the mayoral race in Wards 15 and 16, Eglinton-Lawrence

The second set of maps I posted on Twitter was the results for Ward 16, which had an interesting council race. In this post, I present poll results maps for both Wards 15 and 16;  the two wards named. Eglinton-Lawrence. The name Eglinton-Lawrence comes from the federal/provincial riding that was split into two civic wards at Bathurst Street. This post covers both wards.

Bathurst Street represents an important east-west divide on the electoral map. It separates several affluent North Toronto neighbourhoods to the east (such as Lawrence Park) and relatively lower-income neighbourhoods to the west. In 2010, the average household income in Ward 15 was $71,529, slightly below the city’s average; in Ward 16, it was $175,528, the second highest in the city. Ward 15 contains the large Lawrence Heights TCHC housing development and has a larger proportion of immigrants than its eastern, wealthier, neighbour.

Tory won an astounding 74.8% of all votes cast in Ward 16. This was the highest ward-level result for Tory in the last election and the largest winning margin of any mayoral candidate. Olivia Chow came in a very distant second place with 13.0% of the vote, and Doug Ford placed third, taking only 10.6% of all votes cast. Only one poll, Poll 033, located in a TCHC building, thought differently and voted for Ford. On the other side of Bathurst, in Ward 15, Ford won a plurality of votes cast  – 43.1% of the vote – and won 29 polls. Tory won mostly in polls on the eastern edge of the ward, closest to Bathurst Street, Ford won Lawrence Heights and every poll west of Dufferin Street.

2014 mayoral race results in Ward 16

2014 mayoral race results in Ward 15

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Poll results of the mayoral race in Ward 17

Ward 17 Davenport was the first set of ward-level election results maps I posted to Twitter. With a resurrected rivalry between a right-leaning incumbent and a left-leaning challenger, Ward 17 was one of the closest council races in 2014; indeed, it was one that several news outlets declared ‘one to watch’ (even if most political observers were focused on the mayoral race). Unfortunately, change did not come to this part of Toronto. (As it turns out, only one incumbent councillor seeking re-election, John Parker in Ward 26, lost his seat.)

Ward 17 is relatively compact as far as Toronto’s wards go. It is bounded by the Canadian Pacific Railway to the south and Eglinton Avenue to the north, it extends east to Oakwood and St. Clair, and bounded by more railways to the west. It where the old City of Toronto meets the former City of York; it’s a transitional area where the pre-war inner city meets the inner-ring suburbs. Ward 17 has been represented by right-leaning councillor Cesar Palacio since 2000, though it has been contested by candidates in every election since.

I’ll start off by admitting my personal bias. While the maps that I produce are completely objective (they only show which candidate placed first in each poll and by what margin), I am not afraid to acknowledge my left-leaning political views. I found myself disappointed by how Ward 17 voted. The incumbent, Cesar Palacio, was one of Mayor Rob Ford’s most loyal councillors. He voted with the mayor over 70 percent of the time in 2011, 2012, and 2013 and failed to make much of an impression over his fourteen years in office. On the other hand, hard-working Alejandra Bravo promised to be a more responsive representative for the community; she’s in tune with local issues such as transit, local infrastructure, and high unemployment. Torontoist’s endorsement of Bravo published on October 16 expresses these thoughts much more eloquently than I can.

Interestingly, Ward 17 is one of only two polls in which the newly elected mayor, John Tory, came in third place (the other was Ward 8, which I will discuss later). Doug Ford came in first place, with 40.6% of all votes cast for mayor, while Olivia Chow came in second with 31.6%. John Tory came in third, at 24.6%. Chow and Tory were able to place first in several polls south of St. Clair Avenue and east of Dufferin Street, but polls in the northwest quadrant of the ward came out (relatively strongly) in favour of Doug Ford.

Poll results of the councillor race in Ward 17

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