Kitchener South-Hespeler

	FEE, AMY
	LAJEUNESSE, NATHAN ANDRE
	SHENOY, SUREKHA
	SOOKRAM, NARINE
	VANDERPOOL, FITZROY
	WEBER, DAVID

Incumbent(s):

	Kitchener-Conestoga    Michael Harris    (64.94% of voters in new riding)    2014/2008 Predictions
	Cambridge    Hon Kathryn McGarry    (26.73% of voters in new riding)    2014/2008 Predictions
	Kitchener Centre    Daiene Vernile    (8.33% of voters in new riding)    2014/2008 Predictions

Reference:

Population (2011):			97673
2014 Election Result: Transposition courtesy of Kyle Hutton
		12403	36.53%
		10894	32.08%
		7895	23.25%
		2124	6.26%
	OTHERS	638	1.88%
	Total Transposed	33955
	Component Riding(s) & Votes Transposed
	Kitchener-Conestoga
		7758
		7163
		5451
		1457
	Others	499
	Total Transposed	22328
	Cambridge
		3212
		2742
		1805
		512
	Others	95
	Total Transposed	8366
	Kitchener Centre
		1433
		989
		639
		155
	Others	45
	Total Transposed	3261
Federal Election Result (2015):
		Marwan Tabbara
		20215	42.30%
		Marian Gagné
		17544	36.70%
		Lorne Bruce
		7440	15.60%
		David Weber
		1767	3.70%
		Nathan Lajeunesse
		772	1.60%
		Elaine Baetz
		91	0.20%

	05/06/2018	Kitchener Steve 199.7.157.65
Amy Fee has outworked all of her competitors combined. She will take this in a close race. Fitz will have to go back to his old gig as an oil wrestling promoter.
	05/06/2018	Kitchener Guy 174.116.129.25
Solid PC pickup in this new riding, after today's endorsement by left leaning Waterloo Record, and clearly winning the sign war. NDP have never been a factor in either conservative Hespeler or liberal South Kitchener, and are hurt by NDP candidate's controversial promotion of Kitchener women's mud wrestling contests. Liberals would have been a factor without overall campaign collapse.
	05/06/2018	Eric L 174.115.220.244
TooCloseToCall has this riding as the one with the largest increase in advance polling turnout, when compared to last election. Interesting to see what effect that has. http://www.tooclosetocall.ca/2018/06/advance-turnout-shows-busy-gta.html?m=1
	23/05/2018	Dr. Bear 184.175.13.231
I am confident in an NDP prediction here. Several polls in the last few days have shown the NDP edging out the PC province wide, and getting close to 50% in SW Ontario. That coupled with name recognition for the candidate and lack of any incumbent, leads me to think this will go orange.
	19/05/2018	MTC 24.157.98.210
There are parts of town where the PCs have more lawn signs, and parts of town where the NDP has more lawn signs. The sense I get from just talking to people is that Liberals are abandoning the party in droves. The race is who can scoop up the most here, the PCs or the NDP. Based on two factors: - Fitz is actually more well known than I first realized - there is no Ford nation in this area, if anything there is an unusually strong anti-Ford sense going around I think the NDP will get a much higher portion of Liberal votes and sneak a win.
	19/05/2018	Bza 172.219.4.208
Definitely would change this to TCTC. With the NDP going up in the polls, this riding is turning into a 3 way race, possibly even a two-way race between the NDP and PCs.
	17/05/2018	Dr. Bear 45.72.146.253
Now I'm adamant that this should be TCTC. The NDP ARE benefiting from a liberal collapse and PC support is actually in a slight decline. With the polls all showing the NDP solid and growing in SW Ontario, ridings with only a 9 point gap are going to be competitive. There are lots of dissatisfied Liberal voters thinking orange.
	15/04/2018	A.S. 99.225.48.35
While there is a generic 'Tory Hespeler vs Liberal Kitchener' factor that played out in the federal election, I'd really think more in terms of Pioneer Park, Chicopee, and the growing outer reaches of Doon as the latent heart of Tory support--or maybe non-NDP support, if we're looking in terms of the NDP being realistically competitive here, which is something I wouldn't take *not* seriously, even if it leaves me with a whiff of deja vu from past futile claims. (But hey: a notional 23% cobbled together from ridings that were, in terms of 2014, uncongenial. I can understand the optimism.)
	08/04/2018	174.115.220.244
With the new riding carving out Hespeler, Doon, and the Alpine and Vanier communities, a lot of people are calling this riding a blank canvas. Some key things to note here, Michael Harris publically announced he isn't running for Kitchener-Conestoga anymore, so it shouldn't be as much of a shock for voters that there will be no incumbent for their (new) riding. On the flip side, Vanderpool has a very interesting back story, and is the only known figure in this race due to his boxing career, so the obvious media attention should help him here. I think he'll have a significant leg up given the younger population and Conestoga students in this area.
	02/04/2018	Dr. Bear 65.92.187.34
I am reiterating my earlier TCTC prediction and I'm beginning to think that the NDP may have a better chance winning that I've previously thought. The poll numbers suggest that the PCs are leading but flat from last election, while the NDP are benefiting from Liberal collapse. My back of the envelope calculations put this seat neck to neck between the NDP and PC.
	21/03/2018	Stephen B 135.23.122.204
Hespeler is the more Conservative-leaning part of this new riding. South Kitchener has a more typically Liberal suburban/urban profile. BUT, the Tory candidate is a Catholic school board trustee for Kitchener, whereas the Liberal candidate lives in Cambridge. There is some animosity among residents of Hespeler about being lumped in with Kitchener, and some would out of principle not vote vote a Kitchener resident. The rivalry is still very real. That's enough to turn this, but the Liberals would have won this last go 'round. I think they will take it this year.
	19/03/2018	jeff316 69.165.157.213
Fitz is about as much of a star candidate as he will prove campaigner. The NDP vote will evaporate both ways. The PCs might just squeak this one back but it could go either way.
	13/03/2018	Demarcoa 192.0.154.113
Given how close the last provincial election was, I predict that the PC party will win this seat.
	31/01/2018	Teddy Boragina 104.222.124.3
What I missed: Who the NDP candidate is, a star candidate (former boxer) With the Liberals and Tories busy making themselves scandalous, the NDP is primed to sneak into seats across the province, especially seats like this, with a locally popular star carrying their banner.
	29/01/2018	JC 99.229.207.55
Before the Patrick Brown meltdown, PC would likely have picked up this new seat with ease. With the PC in implosion mode, anti-government votes will likely consolidate behind the NDP, which makes this a very interesting three way fight.
	19/01/2018	Dr.Bear 204.187.20.95
While TCTC is the appropriate call at this point in time; and while I would probably call it for the PCs were I compelled to make a decision; I feel that the NDP can not be discounted in this riding. The NDP have a repository of 23% of the vote and have been able to win similar urban ridings in SW Ontario. If Horwath keeps on being the alternative of choice to the Liberals in the south, this could be picked up by team orange.
	28/12/2017	seasaw 99.225.226.230
@Teddy Borogina, I agree with the TCTC, but not Liberal. What you're doing is taking the federal results to predict the provincial results. If you look back to the last 80 years, in 63 of those years federal and provincial governments were ran by different parties. Also, in 2015, Tories were led by Stephen Harper, who was trying to win his 4th election in a row, something that McKenzie King and Pierre Trudeau couldn't do, not only that but there was also Trudeamania 2 going on. Doubt that there's going to be a Wynnemania, but we'll see. This is a new riding and we can't accurately predict till later
	2017-12-24	Teddy Boragina 157.52.13.39
The transposition tells the story. In the new riding, the Liberals would have taken 36.5% of the vote to 32.1% for the Tories; This riding should be TCTC, or, Liberal
	13/12/2017	M. Lunn 174.7.110.151
Hespeler is quite conservative while Kitchener South is more a bellwether so unless the PCs do something really stupid, I suspect this will be a low hanging fruit for them.