Prediction Changed
10:42 PM 20/09/2008

Election Prediction Project
www.electionprediction.com

Peterborough
Federal Election - 2007



Constituency Profile

Candidates:
Green
Berrigan, Emily
Marxist-Leninist
Couto, Elaine
Conservative
Del Mastro, Dean
Liberal
McGregor, Betsy
New Democratic
Sharpe, Steve

Incumbent:
Dean Del Mastro

2006 Result:
Dean Del Mastro
22774
Diane Lloyd
20532
Linda Slavin
16286
Brent Wood
3205
Aiden Wiechula
455
Bob Bowers
179

Previous Prediction/result
06 Prediction/04 Result
04 Prediction/00 Result




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08 09 25 R.O.
209.91.149.10
This riding is not a very likely liberal gain anymore as the party is behind in the polls and Dean Del Mastros strength as the incumbent makes things more difficult. I also disagree with the comment on rural signs for the liberals. As I have been thru several rural ridings in ontario and noticed liberal signs are mostly limited to public street corners and not on much private property. So it might not be a good idea to assume that signs placed in rural areas actually equaled rural support for the liberals. Well the city of Peterborough is growing I admit when there last I was surprised by how big it has become. But at the same time not really convinced it is as left leaning as some here try to claim and still winnable for the conservatives. Sure they will not win some polls in the urban core in this riding but they lost those polls last election and still won anyways.
08 08 18 The Other PTBO Pundit
69.158.57.32
One thing is for certain, the Greens are having a field day filling the lawns that have not gone either Liberal or NDP in the downtown area. These ‘migrating voters’ as I like to call them will have very little impact however. The majority of the votes would have voted Conservative with or without the train. The timing of call was spot on.
08 09 23
24.235.249.230
I have to agree with Derek Lipman to some degree. This election is closer than one might think. I believe that the Liberal Brand is stronger than I thought in this riding. I personally believe that Del Mastro's support is very strong because of the train. However, I think on a grander party scale its a mile wide and an inch deep. Del Mastro must have got down on his knees and kissed Martha Hall Finlay's feet when she came out opposed the train. That was a gift and perhaps the kiss of death for the Liberals. However, the NDP is a party of conscious. I just but can't help but think that they are going to flee over to the Liberals and that might very well toss Del Mastro right out office. Let's remember if you take all the ‘Progressive voters’ and added them up in this community the Conservatives would never have a chance.
08 09 23 Derek Lipman
209.42.125.185
Election Prediction Project has jumped the gun on this riding. Either too many Conservative partisans wrote in, or internal polling is off the mark-because this riding is definitely up in the air. The Liberal campaign is surging and the party is beginning to gain in Ontario. It should be back in the lightning bolt ‘too close to call’ category.
08 09 23 PTBO Pundit
24.235.145.25
...interesting race so far and its definitely too early to call this one... unbiased observers will note that the Liberals are actually quite dramatically winning the sign war on private property. Travelling the rural routes, one can't help but notice this is possibly the strongest Liberal effort since the days of Peter Adams... Does this mean they can beat an incumbent viewed as an activist? The key will be whether or not people actually believe the ghost train is really coming. This feels like one of those rare elections that is REALLY local and will end at about 2:00 AM the day after election day...
08 09 19 Derek Lipman
69.158.57.201
Cory: I respect your analysis and have read your thoughtful blog (which is less partisan than my own musings), but I have to disagree with you here. It is far closer than your prediction. While Betsy's campaign has been nothing short of spectacular, the Dion campaign has yet to inspired or fire on all cylinders. The electorate is volatile, and my feeling at the door is that things can go either way. I believe this riding will go back to the Liberal party when the dust settles. I am not denying the existence of a strong Conservative base; I simply believe the Liberal values are stronger in this riding. Harper and the Reform party are anathema to Centre-left Peterboroughians. The NDP vote will not be nearly as high as last time. This factor could be enough to sink the Conservative DDM.
08 09 18 University Student
65.93.173.27
I thought I might weigh in on the sign war...
Downtown...heavy amounts of Orange and Red
Suburbs....good mix of mostly Blue, and some Red
Countryside....heavy amounts of Blue
That being said...it seems the Conservatives are winning the sign wars on the lawns, and I believe will be a prediction of the result in this riding. Conservative Win.
PS: I do find the Peterborough Riding interesting as there are very few signs on public property and sides of roads. Most signs are on lawns. Interesting.
08 09 17 CoryFef
99.237.227.103
There is no doubt Dean will win this riding once again. His party and platform appeal to the rural and more religious voters. In Peterborough, the student community doesn't have enough power to make any sway. Perhaps if they all voted Liberal... but Trent's vote is scattered with a primary focus on the NDP and Green party. I know this because I was a scrutineer (not sure of that spelling) at the last election on campus.
08 09 13 BlueVote
24.235.244.185
It depends where you have been canvassing Derek. The Conservatives don't really need downtown and the suburbs. What Bruce Fitzpatrick's campaign failed to understand last Provincial Election is that mobilizing the counties is the key to victory for a Conservative in Peterborough. Bruce Fitzpatrick's campaign did not understand that and so they ended up appropriating insufficient resources where it was needed and it led to a very disastrous defeat. Dean Del Mastro had very strong ties with the debunked populist Reform Party and they were concentrated in the rural areas. Dean Del Mastro has robust support where he needs to win. He just needs to cover his base and afterwards go after the suburbs. Downtown is a waste of time for a Conservative. Betsy was smart to start canvassing after her nomination, she is not very well known.
08 09 13 rebel
99.246.104.177
Sorry Derek...I concur with the King of Kensington on Peterborough. The IPSOS-REID bellweather riding polling are showing narrow Conservative wins last time in Ontario are turning up solidly this time. The battleground in Ontario now is shifting to the narrow Liberal 2006 weins...
08 09 12 Derek Lipman
69.158.57.118
King of Kensington: Like your thin analysis of Don Valley West, you are way off here. Have you gone door-to-door in this riding? I have, and I can tell you that voters are very energized and responsive to Betsy McGregor. The notion that Del Mastro will easily shrug off the competition is bunk. I think you underestimate how many people in this riding vote on the center and left.
08 09 12 King of Kensington
74.15.66.228
I'm going to predict the Conservatives will take Peterborough again. It may very well be the bellweather riding par excellence. Peterborough after all has been declared (in the past at least) by some market researchers as the most average city in Canada. The influence of Trent University isn't as great as some people think - it is a small university and Peterborough doesn't ‘college town’ demos that Kingston and Guelph have. Harper's targeting of hockey moms and dads and ‘middle Canadians’ should go over here much better than Stephane Dion who doesn't have a single populist bone in his body.
08 09 08 University Student
209.42.106.95
Well, Peterborough is one of Canada's best bell-weather ridings, and there is not enough excitement in this local race to prove otherwise. Peterborough, as the rest of the country, will squeak in a Conservative MP in Dean DelMastro again. Del Mastro is certainly not the star the Conservatives would love in this riding, but he is a safe and consistent bet. This election will be mostly based on Stephane Dion's performance. If he can't step up, Betsy won't be elected. Students will have some, but rather little effect in this riding as most of them are heavily interested with what Palin & Obama are doing south of the border, not the lacklustre election this one may turn out to be. Expect very similar results to the 2006 election.
08 09 08
24.235.249.230
The Conservatives will win by 2500 votes. Despite Del Mastro's youthful mistakes he has proven himself to be hardworking and sincere. So I think if he works hard, shows he has in-depth knowledge of the issues and can demonstrate he won't be hijacked by extreme right wing voters after the election. I think he will pull ahead and win.
That being said.... I just want to tell everyone how proud of this community I am today. This riding has been deemed ‘too close to call’. Across the board in all the major newspapers this riding is listed as a ‘battlefield ground’. After years of this ‘Bell Weather’ riding garbage I hope people begin to see the benefits of not just caving into the leader most likely to win. People are watching and listening to ‘our issues!’ It is ridings like ours and our views that are now going to shape the direction of where the country goes.
08 09 08 Susan
76.71.138.203
I don't know how anyone can say Betsy is a parachute candidate. She fought a tough nomination and the people backing her were all local. Betsy lives in the riding and has a vast amount of knowledge about the areas needs.
08 09 08 Derek Lipman
209.42.106.254
Jeffrey:
The ‘parachute’ label you have applied to Betsy McGregor is misleading and categorically false. If anything, BM has deeper roots in this riding than any of the candidates. Furthermore, your NDP pick in this riding is delusional. I am not saying the NDP candidate is not a good guy- I'm sure he is. It is just that your assertion has no grounding in statistical possibility or historical context. Take a look at electoral data, and even this site. Do me a favour... find an Ontario riding in which the NDP won in the past 15 years (outside of downtown Toronto) where they closed a gap larger than 5000 votes. You won't. Their base has eroded and they do not resonate on the line at GM. Moreover, people are too afraid of a Harper majority. The Liberals only have to close a 2000 vote gap. Last time the scandals were in their court. This time, the Conservatives have their own demons.
McGregor has the ability to connect to a melange of voters of different backgrounds. She speaks French fluently (which bodes well for her tenure in Ottawa) and had a strong career in different fields.
08 09 03 Jeffrey
66.97.23.246
We need to keep a few things in mind...
First - The Conservative performance in this area has been spotty at best. Del Mastro has committed a number of gaffes, the question will be how long the memory of the electorate is. A number of citizens are also not convinced that the railway will come back to Peterborough despite promises to the contrary (promises, promises). Del Mastro will also have to show that he is above negative advertising and run a Peterborough Centred campaign. The incumbant is often favoured...
Second - MacGregor is a parachute candidate. I know she grew up here, blah blah blah, but she left... for a long time. She doesn't know the area nor the people in it. They tend to be relatively unforgiving when it comes to parachute candidates here so the question is, can she buck that trend? They certainly seem to have the money to put behind the campaign though...
Third - The Sharpe family has been in Peterborough for 7 Generations, he comes from an established farming family (and cash crop farms himself), is well educated and also a teacher. These facts should make him desireable to a broader group of individuals. He is a good listener, but yet to prove himself in larger groups. He is also new to the political arena and lacks name recognition so far. Will people see past him being a relative unknown?
Fourth - Who is the Green Candidate again? She really lacks name recognition... the other three have been at it for a year, she just started and is very young. Maybe great things from her in the future? One never knows, but she is another candidate from 'somewhere else'.
All things considered, I'd love to see Sharpe win... but I'm biased, admittedly. If we're dealing in the reality of who can win? Well... the best candidate doesn't always get the job as we've seen in the last few elections.
08 09 01
24.235.244.185
The closeness of the race on the federal level as reflected in the polls mirrors that of the closeness of the race in Peterborough. For that reason, electionprediction.org has appropriately labelled this riding as close. However, if conjecture be warranted, the winds blow in the direction of the Tories. With a Liberal Ontario government in power, better financed and better organized campaign from the Tories, Peterborough Liberal candidate seeming like an outsider from the community and Canada expected to re-elect a minority Conservative government, another win for Dean Del Mastro should be expected.
08 08 26 Stevo
76.64.102.171
Derek Lipman should try not to import his Toronto-based perceptions into other parts of the province. There is no reason to think that those Peterboroughans who voted Conservative in 2006 will not do so again, nor that they would view the Harper government as inept. Dion's perceived environmentalism (despite having an abysmal track record in that file) will win him accolades in the Trent University crowd, but that crowd was never going to vote Conservative in the first place. Too close to call, but leans Conservative due to incumbent advantage.
08 08 02 Derek Lipman
99.227.84.24
This riding will likely swing Liberal. Dean Del Mastro was the beneficiary of a Liberal meltdown in '06, along with a robust NDP campaign run by the perennial (but strong) also-ran Linda Slavin. This time, however, DDM will have to defend 2 years of Conservative ineptitude. The city lacks a conservative bedrock strong enough to bring home a smashing win. Tight, but Grit gain.
08 05 14 R.O.
209.91.149.44
Peterborough is definitely going to be a hard fought riding in the next election as it usually has been over the years. I get that feeling based on the number of high profile liberals and conservatives who have visited the riding. Just in the last couple of weeks Dion / Ignatieff and environment minister John Baird have all been in this city. For a small out of the way riding it seems to be getting a lot of attention. As for the candidates running here I think Dean Del Mastro is better positioned now than going into the last election when he was somewhat new to the political scene in this riding. When compared to the 2 main candidates planning to run against him he is higher profile now then they are.
08 05 04 binriso
156.34.209.176
Pretty sure that if Peter Adams had ran here last time he would’ve won. With a 7000 vote difference from 04, that was probably enough to ensure his survival. This is a pretty likely Conservative hold next time, the only thing that will hurt them is if the NDP vote goes down significantly, which will benefit the Liberals.
08 05 03 Peg Leg Pete
99.234.197.75
You can't ignore the impact of the GO-TRAIN announcement in Peterborough. It made it clear that Dean Del Mastro (with the help of Jim Flaherty) can deliver a big ticket item for his riding. So despite Dean's history of often putting his foot in his mouth, he goes into the next campaign with a clear advantage. Another thing Del Mastro has going for him is who terribly weak Liberal candidate Betsy McGregor has turned out to be. She has no profile in the riding and hasn't managed to draw any media attention to herself. I also don't see the rural section of this riding providing very many votes for McGregor while Del Mastro cleans up there. The NDP will end up in third place as they always do in Peterborough and I predict Dean Del Mastro wins easily by 4000 votes. It won't be close.
08 04 28 Jeff Westlake
24.235.139.36
Del Mastro will be very tough to beat whenever this election is called. He has secured investments in a number of areas his predecessor could not, the most significant of which are the rail link to Toronto, affordable housing and Trent-Severn Waterway. He also has an extreme advantage given the riding's history as a bellweather riding.
08 04 08 R.O.
209.91.149.199
Still think conservative mp Dean Del Mastro has the advantage here for a couple of reasons. One being the liberals have a new candidate Betsy Mcgregor but for whatever reasons they seem to be having a hard time filling in the gap left by Peter Adams who was mp for a number of years. Also the riding of Peterborough is a mixed urban and rural riding its the type the conservatives can do good in but it still does have a significant liberal and ndp base. The fact its surrounded by other conservative ridings and high profile mps also helps. The train announcement for this area ads an interesting issue into the next campaign here for sure and I think some in the gta do not see a need but in a growing city like Peterborough there is in fact a need for this service.
08 03 25 PTBO Pundit
24.235.145.25
While Del Mastro works hard, lets not forget that he foolishly accused the Liberals of organizing a conspiracy around him, he has been consistently slammed for abusing tax payer's money for excessive partisan attacks and his office often can't even spell properly in his mail outs. The reality is that the rail link is obviously intended to make up for this embarrassing M.P. who may well loose this swing riding, now that he is facing a more serious Liberal Candidate. I change my vote to ‘too close to call...’
08 03 22 I'm Always Right
24.150.237.186
The Conservatives bought Peterborough with the Go Train announcement in the recent federal budget. The riding is theirs, they paid for it and they'll hold it. I would point out that anyone who thinks the Conservatives believes they have any chance of picking up seats in the western GTA needs to notice how there was nothing to help improve Go service there where there's actually a need. Conservative Del Masto can relax. His victory is in the bag.
08 03 15 Curley, Larry and Moe
24.244.244.114
All three of us agree that when Finance Minister Flaherty gave Peterborough a GO-Train route in the last budget, the Conservatives locked up Peterborough. Nobody, including the three of us saw this announcement coming. Someone in the PM's office like Dean Del Mastro. How else can you explain Flaherty's gift to Dean. Look for Del Mastro to ride the GO-Train announcement to victory. The Liberals know this riding is gone, thanks to the budget.
07 11 17 Stevo
70.53.77.49
I thought Peterborough would stay Liberal in 2006, but true to form, Peterborough's reliable record as *the* #1 bellweather riding in Canada came through, and it voted with the overall winning party.
With the Liberals and Tories consistently within the margin of error of eachother in recent polls, Peterborough similarly remains too close to call at this point.
07 04 15 Matt
74.14.130.151
The Greens are running a surprisingly strong candidate this time around. The Greens will scrape off a lot of the voters from other candidates and if
the campaign is strong enough they could spoil the vote?
07 04 09 A.S.
74.99.222.209
Unless we start seeing regular Tory landslide polling margins in Ontario alone, don't be so sure about ‘any day now’--remember that '06 saw local Liberal beleaguerment, too. And moreover, name recognition or no name recognition, when it comes to ‘the usual’ for the NDP in Peterborough, 15% is lowballing it unless we're set for 90s-style sagging support or the Liz May Greens usurping a lot of that Trent-town granola vote. That Linda Slavin hit 25% wasn't just a quality-candidate fluke; there's a latently strong NDP-germane base here, and if anything, the continued post-Peter Adams left-Liberal vacuum combined with Del Mastro's weaknesses ought to passively help rather than hurt the Peterborough NDP--that is, if it doesn't bypass it altogether en route to the Greens, for whatever none-of-the-above reason. Not that Del Mastro doesn't have the incumbent (and incumbent government) advantage; but just because a Liberal is disillusioned doesn't mean he/she is automatically going Tory, esp. when said Tory is perceived as ‘worse’. Who knows, if the Liberal situation is truly catastrophic beyond repair, the NDP treads water and the Greens surge, Peterborough might be offering us a Saanich-Gulf Islands kind of ‘solid Tory win’ result...
07 04 07 PTBO Pundit
24.235.147.205
I predict a Conservative win. I suspect that the site managers will mark this a conservative prediction any day now. The Liberals have never been more divided in this riding. The 3-way Liberal nomination contest has been nothing short of an embarrassing catastrophe. A legal challenge cancelled the nomination meeting, thus infuriating the entire local membership. They will be lucky to have a candidate before the writ is dropped. While Del Mastro has had some serious controversies over his first term, his party at least seems united compared to the Liberals. The NDP candidate has little name recognition and will likely draw the usual 15%.
07 04 03 Daniel
156.34.85.213
As long as the Conservatives remain competitive in Ontario, they should be able to retain this riding. The Liberals have a shot, but a Grit victory would probably have to come as a result of a national trend toward a Liberal win in the final days of the election campaign (given this riding's almost spotless bellweather-status).
07 04 03 Initial
24.235.135.194
Del Mastro is not a strong incumbent (as you can probably tell from the weekly flyers). Slavin is out of the running for the NDP and I doubt her predecessor will have her popularity. The Liberal Party could win this seat easily should the next candidate play his/her cards right.
07 03 29 M. Lunn
74.99.130.109
This is a bellwether riding and has gone for the winner in 11 of the last 12 elections and likely will once again. Part of the reason for this is it is a mixed rural/urban riding so Peterborough will go Liberal, while the rural parts will go Conservative.



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