The road to the mayor’s office runs through Toronto’s inner suburbs.
asserted
road → run → suburbs
It’s a reality that’s brought to light by a new analysis illustrating just how — and where — past office holders have been able to stitch together a constituency of support across the city.
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holders → ’ → city
The importance of winning over voters outside the core is down to simple electoral math of post-amalgamation Toronto, said Zack Taylor, an associate professor of political science at Western University, who performed the analysis for the University of Toronto’s School of Cities.
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who → win → Cities
“There are way more eligible voters in the old metro suburbs” of Etobicoke, York, North York, East York and Scarborough than there are downtown, he said.
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he → be → Etobicoke
“So that’s where the votes are, and you need to get them” he said.
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he → ’ → them
But while Toronto’s downtown and its suburbs are often thought of as opposing tribes, with the core always voting for left-leaning candidates and the outer boroughs backing conservatives, Taylor’s analysis — a poll-by-poll, census-tract level breakdown of past elections — paints a more complicated picture.
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analysis → think → picture
It suggests potential fault lines in the suburbs, with neighbourhoods there sometimes supporting different brands of conservatism depending on residents’ socioeconomic status.
uncertain
neighbourhoods → suggest → status
It also shows suburban areas aren’t always hostile territory for progressives.
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areas → show → progressives
In fact, Toronto’s left-leaning mayors have relied on significant support from voters outside downtown to come to power.
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mayors → lean → power
That includes Olivia Chow, who won three years ago by winning large swathes of Scarborough.
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who → include → Scarborough
It’s a feat she may have to repeat to be successful in the Oct. 26 vote, and her main opponent, Brad Bradford, seems intent on trying to block her.
uncertain
opponent → ’ → her
It only reflects votes cast on election day, not advance ballots.
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It → reflect → day
And each election has its own dynamics based on the number of candidates, the politics of the day, voter turnout and other factors.
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election → have → day
Still, the maps of three recent competitive Toronto elections show where mayors have secured their victories, and offer a potential path to success for this year’s candidates.
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mayors → show → candidates
Rob Ford 2010: Run the suburbs
Ford stormed into the mayor’s office in 2010 with a populist agenda promising low taxes, smaller government and an end to the “gravy train” at city hall.
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Ford → run → hall
It was a right-wing message that resonated throughout the suburbs, particularly his home turf of North Etobicoke, where he won more than 84 per cent of the vote in some areas.
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he → resonate → areas
He got almost two-thirds of the vote in other parts of suburban Toronto, such as sections of Scarborough’s West Rouge and North York’s Westminster-Branson.
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He → get → Rouge
A majority of voters in some affluent areas outside of downtown, such as parts of Bridle Path-Sunnybrook-York Mills, also backed him.
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majority → back → him
But he still ended up with more than 47 per cent of the vote citywide.
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he → end → vote
His victory showed that a right-leaning mayoral candidate can win by crafting a message that plays well in the suburbs and gets little traction downtown.
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that → show → traction
Ford won by being “all suburbs, all the time,” said Taylor.
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Taylor → win → ?
John Tory 2014: Split the suburbs
Doug Ford took up the family standard in the 2014 mayor’s race, but failed to replicate his brother’s popularity across the suburbs.
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Ford → split → suburbs
Instead, neighbourhoods outside the core largely split between him and the winner, former Progressive Conservative leader John Tory.
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neighbourhoods → split → him
The division was largely along economic lines, according to Taylor.
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division → accord → Taylor
Meanwhile, Tory positioned himself as a moderate centre-right leader who could provide stability after the scandal-filled Ford administration, a message that appealed in well-off communities outside downtown.
uncertain
that → position → downtown
That included parts of Forest Hill, Rosedale and the northern Yonge Street corridor.
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That → include → Hill
Tory took more than 70 per cent of the vote in sections of Etobicoke’s Kingsway South, where household incomes are more than twice the city average.
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incomes → take → South
Across town in parts of Cliffcrest, a lakeside Scarborough neighbourhood where incomes are just above average, more than 50 per cent of voters backed Tory.
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cent → back → Tory
Those midtown and suburban areas, plus his strong showings in more central neighbourhoods such as the Beaches and Downtown Yonge East, were enough to get Tory about 40 per cent of the citywide vote.
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areas → get → vote
Tory’s win revealed divisions between what kind of conservative candidate wealthier and low-income suburban areas would support, according to Taylor.
uncertain
areas → reveal → Taylor
He described that dynamic as “Toronto’s two rights.”
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He → describe → rights
Taylor has a warning for progressive mayoral hopefuls: “You cannot win by core alone,” he said.
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he → have → core
Left-leaning contenders who are popular downtown but nowhere else have been doomed to lose.
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who → lean → ?
That’s what happened to Chow in 2014, Jennifer Keesmaat in 2018, and Gil Penalosa in 2022.
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what → ’ → 2022
In the 2023 byelection to replace Tory, Chow’s support was concentrated downtown, but she won by also breaking through in suburban areas.
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she → replace → areas
Taylor calls this the “core plus” strategy, which David Miller, the only other left-leaning mayor to lead post-amalgamation Toronto, also used successfully in 2003 and 2006.
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Miller → call → 2003
Three years ago Chow won more than half the votes cast in many areas downtown, including parts of the Annex, North Riverdale and Kensington-Chinatown.
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Chow → win → Annex
But outside the core, she also picked up about 45 per cent in places like the East York apartment community of Thorncliffe Park.
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she → pick → Park
Further from the core, she got more than 50 per cent in a part of the Milliken neighbourhood in the far north of Scarborough, which had voted for the Fords in previous elections.
asserted
which → get → elections
On the opposite side of the city, Chow also had a decent showing with nearly 40 per cent support in parts of the New Toronto section of south Etobicoke.
asserted
Chow → have → Etobicoke
…and 17 more, not listed.
The Aporia
