Prediction Changed
11:46 PM 08/10/2007

Election Prediction Project
www.electionprediction.com

Perth—Wellington
Ontario Provincial Election - 2007



Constituency Profile

Candidates:
Independent
ALLMAN, KEVIN
Family Coalition
BANNON, PAT
New Democratic
HANSEN, DONNA
Green
PAYNE, ANITA
Progressive Conservative
RUTHERFORD, JOHN
Freedom
SMINK, ROBBY
Liberal
WILKINSON, JOHN

Incumbent:
Perth-Middlesex (72.8%)
John Wilkinson
Waterloo-Wellington (18.4%)
Ted Arnott
Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey (8.8%)
John Tory

2003 Result (redistributed):
14811
40.69%
15512
42.61%
3641
10.00%




Put your political/campaign ad here! See sponsorship details.

07 10 06 Old Willowdaler
99.233.14.35
Looking like a PC squeaker here. Should be a natural PC constituency but thanks to John TOry and his funding brainwave look for a lot of old stock Ontario Tories to be in a snarky mood. Follow that up with the reaction to the Free vote with some staying home and dear god dare I say it some spoiled ballots by way of greens, look for a result pretty darn close to last round. Less than 2% will seperate on eday and that is all thanks to the policies of John Tory
07 09 26 Mount Forester
216.110.249.112
What a yawn? Has anyone seen the candidates in this constituency? No literature from the Liberals? A pretty simplistic card from the PCs. The NDP is centred in Stratford. The local newspaper is doing next to nothing on the campaign. Boring, boring, boring. There seems to be little if any interest in the area on the campaign.
07 09 22 A.S.
74.99.222.209
Now that his seat's technically slipped back into the PC column through redistribution, John Wilkinson's got a dilly of a race in his hands; then again, the notional '03 outcome might be skewed by the Wellington-area incumbents in question (Arnott, Eves)--and, for that matter, the popularity of Bert Johnson, who suffered a bit of a surprise defeat at the hands of Wilkinson. (IOW Wilkinson might have gotten more votes had more people expected the dark horse to win.) Generally speaking, something doesn't quite jell about Perth-Middlesex belonging to the 'absolutely likely Tory seat' pantheon, whatever the '03 figure within these boundaries (and Gary Schellenberger's federal representation notwithstanding). Maybe it's because the seat's so defined in the mind through artsy Shakespearean Stratford, which seemed ideally prepped to become a mini-Guelph as a prog-politics bastion--speaking of which, by 2003 Howie standards and within a seat like this, 12% actually feels like a fairly *normal* NDP result. Remember: the party did better not only in the subsequent pair of federal elections, but in the previous (and pre-provincial election) Schellenberger byelection, which was something of an Ontario-heartland breakthrough moment for Jack Layton's leadership...
07 09 13 Mount Forester
216.110.249.112
Who is John Wilkinson anyway? In this part of the riding, he is little more than a face grinning at us out of newspaper ads. He hangs out with the local bigwigs, shows up to pass out a cheque, but as for actually making an effort to meet local folks..nothing. I wouldn't say he is known quantity in the new Wellington County portion of the riding, that has traditionally voted PC. In fact, this week, I have been asked several times, What does ‘Re-elect’ on the Wilkinson election signs actually mean, since we never elected him here before? I think the PC Candidate will find this portion of the riding to be good for him.
07 09 13 A.F. Smith
76.67.18.82
Wilkinson will squeak this one out again. John works his riding like crazy, is well known and is respected as an intelligent and motivated MPP. Wilkinson has also been making in-roads into the newly-added areas of his riding in advance of the election. John is known as delivering the results and being a thorn in the side of the PCs. The Tories had a hard time finding someone to run against him. Although pundits will look at the new riding and claim a PC victory, John's real problem is the amount of the NDP vote in Stratford. As long as the NDP retains only its core Stratford support (which is surprisingly high for rural Ontario) John will be ok.
07 09 11 Andrew Cox
74.120.86.22
Liberal Hold.
1) A cursory inspection of this riding might lead one to conclude that it is ideal for a PC pick-up. After all, the riding is majority rural, was once won by the PC Party in a high-profile federal by-election and the last election saw the Liberal beat the PC by just over 3%. But my instinct is that there are complex factors in play that make it less clear cut.
2) I was once at a function with a PC MPP (who shall remain nameless) and we were talking about the next election. He was quite down on his party's chances and used P-W as an example. ?John Wilkinson works his riding as hard as I do. He's at every event and in all the local papers every week delivering something. We aren't going to get him out of that seat with dynamite.? It was an interesting perspective on the power of a hard-working constituency oriented MPP to win votes over with sweat.
3) John Wilkinson is the brother of Dalton McGuinty's chief of staff, Peter Wilkinson. That has meant huge wins for John on a number of funding and policy issues where he was able to influence the Premier through his brother. Those little wins (family health teams, hospital funding, rural infrastructure) should pay huge dividends.
4) The people in the riding who send their children to private Christian schools all voted PC in the last election, due to the tax credit. But the John Tory plan - especially after his ?creationism? comments - appear to be creating a real backlash this time around that should help the Liberals hold moderate voters from going PC and left-wing voters from wasting their vote with the NDP.
5) John Rutherford seems to be a nice fellow, but I'm not sure how hard he is working the riding. He isn't penetrating in the local papers as much as I would have expected.
6) The election will probably come down to how many votes bleed from the Liberals to the NDP. The last election saw the NDP get almost 12% of the vote, primarily in Stratford, which feels very high for this riding. I wouldn't be surprised to see that number go down in this one.
07 09 07 RyanOntario
209.91.149.144
John Rutherford pc candidate has a good chance here , partly due to redistribution and a better pc campaign in nearby kitchener. also the riding is mostly rural and only urban area is stratford.
only reason this riding is still a race is John Wilkinson liberal mpp but he will have a hard time defending his governments lack of progress on the agriculture issue here especially.
07 09 03 Nick J Boragina
74.13.131.141
This is a traditionally conservative area and beyond that, a PC Party area. For a time the only federal Ontario PC MP came from this riding. Beyond that, the question in this election is not ?if? the tories are going to win seats, but how many are they going to win. The last election was a disaster for the party, and polls are showing that this is not the case this time. Even a poor showing by the party would gain more seats then they currently have. Thinking the tories are going to lose a seat without a darn good reason is therefore, quite silly.
Solid PC.
07 05 05 M. Lunn
74.99.130.109
Losing Middlesex and adding Wellington has essentially made this riding far more favourable to the Tories. They would have held this had the current boundaries been used in 2003, so Tory hold.



Submit Information here

Regional Index
Ontario Provincial - 2007
Election Prediction Project - www.electionprediction.com
© Milton Chan, 1999-2007 - Email Webmaster