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Introduction

The Toronto Mayoral Election 2014 was held on October 27, 2014. Incumbent Mayor Rob Ford registered to run for re-election, but dropped out after being diagnosed with a tumour. His brother Doug Ford stepped in to keep the “FORD NATION’ flag flying high. John Tory, former Talk Show Radio Host won the election defeating Ford’s brother, city councillor Doug Ford, and former Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow. More than 980,000 Torontonians cast ballots in this election, which is 60 % of the registered voters. The Toronto Star carried a story:”Doug Ford, wealthy and privileged mayoral candidate, has launched his last-minute campaign with a withering attack on the wealth and privilege of frontrunner John Tory. Over the course of three days, he has said Tory is “from a whole different world,” called Tory a “downtown elite” who is “out of touch,” referred to a Tory “chauffeur,” argued that Tory is accustomed to a “silver platter,” and suggested Tory thinks he is superior to people who live in public housing.[1]

In general, elite means a selected part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities. Here, this article looks into following select groups: Employed vs Unemployed; High School Drop outs vs University educated; Immigrants vs. non-immigrants; languages spoken at home to check the validity of Doug Ford’s assertion.

Methods

Data Collection:

This analysis used the data on Census 2011[2] and National Household Survey 2011[3] and Election Results - 2014 [4] for city wards in City of Toronto. The data were downloaded from Open Data -Toronto.

Exploratory Analysis:

Exploratory analysis was performed by examining the tables of the recorded data. Census_2011[2], National Household Survey 2011[3] and Election Results - 2014[4] recorded as absolute counts. It will be effective to study the effect of each factor on candidates’ success, if they were all in same scale. Hence, raw data of selected few factors affecting the outcome were transformed. Counts representing a factor in each ward was converted as percentage by diving the absolute counts in the ward by the total counts all 44 wards.

Exploratory analysis of the plots produced using the transformed data, revealed only 12 attributes have significant correlation for the candidates’ victory in the wards. In order identify how these factors played a role in John Tory vs. Doug Ford contest, factors were paired to see their effect on election outcome. Home ownership was analyzed but did not play major role in this election.

Findings

  1. Education Level Defines Voting Trend

Box plot (Fig. 1.1) shows wards with a population where high number of university or college educated voters (approximate median value of ~2.5% of all university educated population in Toronto) reside, voted for John Tory. Preference for Doug Ford is even lower than Olivia Chow among the educated population.

plot of chunk plotFigure2

Box plot (Fig. 1.2) shows wards with a population where high number of school dropout voters (approximate median value of ~3.0% of all school dropout population in Toronto) reside, voted for Doug Ford.

plot of chunk plotFigure3

  1. Place of Birth Defines Voting Trend

Box plot (Fig. 2.1) shows wards with a population where high number of Canadian born voters (approximate median value of ~2.6% of all Canadian population in Toronto) reside, voted for John Tory.

plot of chunk plotFigure5

Box plot (Fig. 2.2) shows wards with a population where high number of foreign born voters (approximate median value of ~2.5% of all foreign born population in Toronto) reside, voted for Doug Ford.

plot of chunk plotFigure6

  1. Employment Defines Voting Trend

Boxplot (Fig. 3.1) shows wards with successfully employed voters (approximate median value of ~62%) reside, voted for John Tory.

plot of chunk plotFigure8

Boxplot (Fig. 3.2) shows wards with a population where high number of unemployed voters (approximate median value of ~11.0%) reside, voted for Doug Ford. It is worth noting that the unemployment rate for 25th quartile for Doug Ford is higher than the 75th quartile for John Tory .

plot of chunk plotFigure9

  1. Visibility Defines Voting Trend

Boxplot (Fig. 4.1) shows wards where a higher percentage of Caucasians (approximate median value of ~2.9%) reside, voted for John Tory. It is noteworthy that the 75th percentile for Doug Ford is lower than the 25th percentile value for John Tory.

plot of chunk plotFigure11

Boxplot (Fig. 4.2) shows wards with a population where visible minority voters (approximate median value of ~3.0%) dominate, voted for Doug Ford.

plot of chunk plotFigure12

  1. Mother Tongue Defines Voting Trend

Boxplot (Fig. 5.1) shows wards with people who claimed English or French as their (approximate median value of ~2.7%) mother tongue, voted for John Tory.

plot of chunk plotFigure14

Boxplot (Fig. 5.2) shows wards with population whose mother tongue is predominantly (approximate median value of ~2.5%) a foreign language, voted for Doug Ford.

plot of chunk plotFigure15

  1. Voter Turnout Defines Voting Trend John Tory was the preferred choice in wards where the turnout of voters (approximate median value of ~63%) was high and Doug Ford was the choice in wards where the voter turnout was lower(approximate median value of ~55%) (Fig.6.0). High voter turnout helped Olivia Chow win in few of her wards.

plot of chunk plotFigure16

  1. Income Defines Voting Trend John Tory won the wards where median income of the residents was well above the median income of Toronto. It is unfortunate to note that the wards where Doug Ford won, even the 75th quartile falls below Toronto’s median income of $58,381. It is worth noting that the median income in the wards where Olivia Chow received her support is same as the median income for the wards that supported Doug Ford.

plot of chunk plotFigure17

Conclusions

This analysis reveals significant evidence that there exists a class divide between wards where John Tory dominated over the wards that voted for Doug Ford. However, John Tory has the next four years to implement corrective measures to win over the disaffected citizens of Toronto.

References

  1. Millionaire Doug Ford attacks wealth of millionaire John Toronto http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/toronto2014election/2014/09/26/millionaire_doug_ford_attacks_wealth_of_millionaire_john_tory.html
  2. Census -2011 http://opendata.toronto.ca/it/com/Ward%20Profiles%20-%20Census_2011.xlsx
  3. National Household Survey 2011 http://opendata.toronto.ca/it/com/Ward%20Profiles%20-%20NHS_2011.xlsx
  4. Election Results 2014 http://opendata.toronto.ca/elections/vote2014/unofficialresult-wardbyward.xml