in analysing canadian elections, you need to begin with the understanding that we have a 3+ party system - at least three parties, and there's always a chance a fourth may appear in any election. we still have five at the federal level...

this is the first problem in trying to apply the last american election to the upcoming election in ontario: there are three parties in contention, and it is likely that they will all receive more than 20% of the vote.

of course, a provincial election is not like a presidential election, either - because we are building a house of representatives and not electing a leader of the executive branch.

is this a change election? probably. but, what wynne v. elliot does is open up a space for andrea horwath - because elliot doesn't represent much of a change. it's a different hair cut. but, horwath at least looks younger. the pcs really rely on uninformed voters; we call them "tim horton's conservatives". i think they'd have bolted to the ndp under elliot....

conversely, doug ford presents a much starker contrast, and that is going to make it harder for horwath to gain traction.

i'm not willing to call it yet, because wynne is in such a poor position. it seems obvious; it isn't. ford will effectively and believably campaign on change, for better or worse. he will dominate the immigrant communities in toronto, as he and his brother have always done - which is going to be a big problem for both of the other parties, as they're used to taking these voters for granted. that's the scary wildcard, here. his very strong appeal to immigrants could flip some seats in the gta - and other urban areas, perhaps including windsor - that are not normally competitive.

doug ford is what the indo-canadians want - not jagmeet singh. his success with groups like jamaicans, hispanics, hindus and muslims should open some eyes in ottawa. but, i told you this was coming, and you didn't listen.

white moderate conservatives, on the other hand, will come running to wynne. so, this is the trade-off: ford will be able to steal a substantial amount of multicultural voters from the liberals and ndp, but he's going to lose white middle class support in the middle of the spectrum in the process.

the battle for the left between wynne and horwath will, as always, be crucial, because wynne may need to cut deep into the ndp base to fully make up for the losses.

this election could in some ways be realigning. both wynne and horwath may be tempted to float illiberal positions to try and prevent the bleed (flood) of immigrant voters to ford - and it probably won't work. whether it works or not, it will certainly backfire. i'm in the group of (culturally) white liberal voters that is going to flip out over certain overtures.

we'll have to see where everybody aligns once the dust settles before i'm willing to make stronger predictions. but, i'm going to guess that wynne pulls this off - at the expense of the ndp.

a good model may be the last toronto mayoral race, where john tory beat doug ford by eating into olivia chow's support base - who willingly rallied to defeat him.