07 10 09	216.59.255.178
I can see Elizabeth Witmer taking the riding. She's always been well regarded and I sense that people feel she has served the riding well. Catherine Fife did look good in debates, but I don't see the riding going to the N.D.P. this year.
	07 10 08	DTC 24.114.255.83
The people of this riding may or may not be getting bored with Elizabeth Witmer, but I think she has at least one more win left in her. Smooth and polished, this former minister should be returned due to that nefarious demon called vote splitting. Fife and Ervin would both be capable MPPs, but I find it unlikely for the NDP to pick up this riding and I don't think Ervin is strong enough.
	07 10 07	TF 74.14.226.8
Fife is a really strong candidate and its obvious in the debates that she is more thought provoking then Witmer. Unfortunately Ervin is a liberal which will automatically pull her a large number of votes. Had Fife ran a as a liberal, she probably could have beat Witmer. It sucks to say it, but Witmer is going to win like usual...
	07 10 06	Nick J Boragina 99.233.85.62
This urban riding belongs to a formerly popular cabinet minister for the PC Party. While there might be the idea out there that Tories cannot win in urban ridings, but it’s riding like this that put that theory to bed. The PC Party is not only going to carry the riding, but the popular vote for the waterloo region as a whole.
	07 10 06	lrs 99.235.219.178
Witmer will hold- latest poll mentioned in Record showing NDP closing on Liberals-one of few seats in province not held by NDP sitting MPP where NDP vote should go up significantly- I voted for Fife and I do not remember as strong candidate for NDP in this riding as in this election- older sections of Waterloo -NDP signs outnumber clearly other parties . Witmer's strength seems as strong as last time so assuming her margin will be higher than 2003 since we will have rare NDP and Liberal equal split .Green Party may get 5-7 % too- still have not got any Liberal literature
	07 10 05	Jer 24.150.112.42
I have a hard time seeing the NDP taking this riding, especially now that they are losing voters to the liberals new found momentum. Witmer survived the rout of 2003 and I would argue that she is a strong contender for the inevitable leadership race that will happen when John Tory not only loses the election but loses his own seat.
	07 10 05	Scott Piatkowski 99.236.191.197
OK, I've hesitated to do this until now, but I'm predicting an upset win for Catherine Fife. I'm a known NDP partisan and my prediction is going to be viewed as biased. Catherine transcends party labels. The Record reported today that Ipsos had her at 24%, just behind Ervin. That would have been the Ipsos Poll conducted September 25-27 -- before Catherine won the televised debate and before John Tory imploded. I've been involved in a lot of NDP campaigns that resulted in moral victories. This isn't one them. I think Catherine Fife is going to win Kitchener-Waterloo.
	07 10 02	M.P. 72.142.230.216
More news straight from the riding. Howard Hampton's event at the UW campus a few weeks ago was modestly attended. Not bad considering it was at 9:30 on a Monday morning. Most of the questions came from the media, however, although there did seem to be a good group of interested students. The worst moment was when he tried to answer a question in French, but that won't have much of an impact in this riding. So what to say in terms of predictions? I think this is TCTC right now between the NDP and PC. Witmer is strong but is slipping a bit from past years. The question is can the NDP dramatically increase their support from previous years? A popular candidate and a riding with two universities in it would seem to be the right mix for that. Given that Witmer still has her base, can the NDP mobilize another 15,000 votes? PC vs. NDP for first Liberals a distant third Green Party 2,500-3,000 votes
	07 10 01	Tom Slee 130.214.17.20
J's comment below regarding Catherine Fife has no content, no evidence, and appears to be a purely personal and groundless attack on the candidate. The facts are simple: Catherine Fife has been elected twice as a school board trustee, both times with more votes than any other candidate.
	07 09 25	J 65.93.146.100
Catherine Fife is NOT well liked... she won the 2006 trustee position only because the region wanted to stick with status quo. Her unpopular decision making began AFTER her election in 2006. Now they know what she can do and she has no chance, especially in an election that sees education shaping up to be a major issue. That being said, Ervin has not gained hardly any momentum, so it wouldn't be surprising to see Fife second. Witmer will take it again.
	07 09 25	JD 70.49.46.53
I think this riding might be too close to call, and the growing sense is that it's a two woman race between Elizabeth Witmer and Catherine Fife. If the sign race is any indication, Fife will do very well. Well enough that Witmer should be worried. Word is, much of the Liberal organization has abandoned Ervin to try and bolster the Liberal candidate in Kitchener Centre. Ervin will not hold her own in a debate and it will be interesting to see how voters will swing after the big debate on Thursday. Between the very soft Erwin support, and the backlash against McGuinty, Fife is poised to pick up support from the Liberals. Many PC voters are really upset about the school funding issue and private healthcare and will support Fife over the Liberal. Add to that the apparently very high popularity for Fife, and this one is going to be interesting. No matter which way it goes, as Scott suggests below, many people will be very surprised on October 10th.
	07 09 23	M.P. 72.142.230.216
Based on a quick survey of lawn signs around the riding it would seem the NDP is a lot stronger here than in the past. Catherine Fife signs have been spotted all over the riding but is especially strong in the area between Westmount and King St. Elizabeth Witmer's presence has been hard to ignore, with the Liberals being present but not strongly. Some other food for thought. Monday September 24th Howard Hampton will be on the Waterloo University campus for a 2 hour campaign stop. Expect some strong support for that. As well Elections Ontario staff spent two whole days on the UW, WLU (and I presume Conestoga College as well) campuses providing a booth for student to sign up to be on the voters list. Expect a couple thousand more voters from this initiative with the younger university crowd tipping towards the NDP and Greens. From reading past posts and looking at previous election results it looks like this riding could easily go PC. This seems even more likely with Witmer's emphasis on the ‘P’; her campaign literature even highlights action take on environmental issues. The NDP should be able to make some gains but perhaps not enough to win.
	07 09 14	nesooite 71.174.235.157
Similar to Kitchener Conestoga in that this should be a strong Liberal target. Elizabeth Witmer is a strong MPP and is enough of a red Tory in this university town to get re-elected.
	07 09 12	Scott Piatkowski 72.142.222.26
It's too early to call this race for anyone, but I wanted to respond to the suggestion made below that Catherine Fife is unpopular. Check out the election results for school trustee from both 2003 and 2006 and tell me how someone who is unpopular tops the polls by a wide margin in two consecutive elections. And, the last time I checked, unpopular candidates don't have three members of Waterloo Council, a member of Waterloo Regional Council, and six current or former school trustees attending their nomination meetings. If it pleases the Conservative and Liberal supporters on this site to imagine that Catherine Fife is unpopular, then they will all be in for a pretty big shock on election night when they find out just how popular she is.
	07 09 10	A.S. 74.99.222.209
Witmer just survived in '03 (phew!)--intriguingly enough, she lost to the Liberals in the advance polls, contrary to the usual pattern of advance polls favouring Tories. (Must've been one hefty last-minute push-cum-sympathy vote.) Allowing for John Tory choke-up potential, I'd have to make this a very knife-edge PC prediction--Witmer's the most ?Red Tory urban? representative remaining, i.e. almost anachronistic--but having the potential opposition vote distributed (dissipated?) amongst two credible opponents helps her case (yes, there is inherent NDP strength here, esp. in N Kitchener and central Waterloo). And one'd expect that a lot of Grit/NDP types (maybe even the candidates themselves?) respect Witmer's own moderation, especially now that Mike Harris is an increasingly benign memory. So, maybe any threat to PC is less noteworthy than the fact that all major candidates are female--including the Greens', who's developed her own respect after several local kicks at the can. An all-candidates debate in K-W might practically seem like something out of 'The View', then, to put it in (maybe-not-so)sexist terms...
	07 08 30	J 65.93.144.32
For some reason, Witmer is able to capture the voters in KW who are extremely loyal liberal voters in each federal election. If she held onto her seat when the conservative legislature was at one of its lowest points ever, she will hold onto it now. Even on top of his this, the liberal/NDP vote will be split as two trustees are running in this riding: Louise Ervin of the Catholic School Board and Catherine Fife for the NDP, a trustee from the Waterloo Region District School Board. Fife is not very popular, after her choices to implement all day Kindergarten and the balanced school day, so some NDP votes may go to Ervin, but Witmer will still win by a landslide.
	07 05 05	M. Lunn 74.99.130.109
This may go Liberal federally, but Elizabeth Witmer is quite popular with her constituents and one of the more moderate members of the party so if she could survive the 2003 disaster, she should be able to hold this, this time around.
	07 04 21	J. J. Springall 60.48.117.208
Definitely no change in this riding--if it didn't go Liberal with the tide of 2003, it's certainly no going that way this time around (now that the Liberal tide has turned into a wee wave--or less!). Witmer never dies!!