My g-g-generation - Young people for Anyone But McGuinty?

In Ontario politics, Dalton McGuinty may be yesterday's news, but his Liberal troops live on to fight another day. The new leader, Kathleen Wynne has a lot of territory to cover if she wants to get her government back up to a majority.

"Let's pretend you'll have careers..."

Where will she start? We already looked at where the Liberals in 2011 gained support compared to their 2007 score. Obviously this wasn't enough, as they went from a majority to a minority, meaning that afterwards they merely held the plurality of seats at Queen's Park, the provincial legislature. So we're going to look at what went wrong for them in the October 2011 elections.

As you may remember, our usual disclaimers apply. The data is for the Rest of Ontario only, because we don't presently have compatible census data for the Northern Ridings. 

Census category	Difference in r
Education 35 to 64: College, CEGEP or other non-university certificate or diploma	-0.20
15 to 19 years	-0.20
Employed, 15 and over, transport: Car, truck, van, as driver	-0.20
Education 15 to 24: Apprenticeship or trades certificate or diploma	-0.20
Females 15 years	-0.20
Labour 15 and over: I Occupations unique to primary industry	-0.20
Education 15 and over: College, CEGEP or other non-university certificate or diploma	-0.20
Females 18 years	-0.20
Females 15 to 19 years	-0.20
Females 16 years	-0.20
Males 16 years	-0.20
16 years	-0.20
Average number of rooms per dwelling	-0.21
Females 17 years	-0.21
Labour 15 and over: J Occupations unique to processing, manufacturing and utilities	-0.21
Males 17 years	-0.22
17 years	-0.22
Education 25 to 34: Apprenticeship or trades certificate or diploma	-0.22
Education 35 to 64: No certificate, diploma or degree	-0.22
Education 15 to 24: College, CEGEP or other non-university certificate or diploma (72)	-0.23
Government transfers - As a % of total income	-0.24
Education 15 and over: High school certificate or equivalent	-0.25
Labour 15 and over: H Trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations	-0.25
Single-detached houses - as a % of total occupied private dwellings	-0.25
Total Pop, field of study: Personal, protective and transportation services	-0.26
Education 15 and over: No certificate, diploma or degree	-0.26
Education 15 to 24: No certificate, diploma or degree	-0.26
Education 35 to 64: Apprenticeship or trades certificate or diploma	-0.27
Education 15 and over: Apprenticeship or trades certificate or diploma	-0.28
Education 35 to 64: High school certificate or equivalent	-0.28
Employed, 15 and over, transport: Car, truck, van, as passenger	-0.28
Total pop, Location of study: No postsecondary certificate, diploma or degree	-0.29
Total Pop: No postsecondary certificate, diploma or degree	-0.29
Average number of persons in common-law-couple families	-0.30

To briefly summarize: at least three groups stand out, perhaps four.

The first group that stands out is young people. The young show up here in multiple iterations because the 2006 Census breaks down teenagers by into individual ages, and then by gender. Add 5 to all the ages listed from this 2006 Census-derived data, and you get a sense at how turned off the University-aged youth must have felt at the prospect of 4 more years of McGuinty, when Cool Mom Andrea Horwath seemed more concerned about what they were going through.

A scene from Occupy Toronto

Because these figures measure the riding-level and not the individual level, we also can't rule out the possibility of the parents of college-age kids, back home in their old ridings, seeing dismal perspectives for their expensively-educated children and becoming similarly disenchanted with the current government. Was 30% Off Tuition a good deal or a more realistic reassessment of the value of a university education? 

Another group is the trade school-educated. Perhaps the college/CEGEP-educated can be tossed in there as well. We suspected that these groups swung towards the Progressive Conservatives, but then we remembered that the figures on the NDP were right at hand. The results were rather surprising. We've highlighted in yellow the groups that moved towards the NDP at the highest levels (or the correlation increased the most, anyway), as well as young people. That doesn't leave much. And it looks like half of the Primary Industry swing away from the Liberals was absorbed by the NDP as well.

The curiosity category is all that remains. Bits and pieces that make interesting statistics but not much of a campaign strategy. Perhaps the Liberals can win back the high "Average number of rooms per dwelling", i.e. big houses constituency. The "Detached houses" and "Car Driver" groups probably likewise swung towards the PCs. But we'll explore that in a few days.

The Big Common Law Family Mystery

The Japanese aren't on this list, but look who is:  "Average number of persons in common-law-couple families," that is, the higher the number of persons in the family, the lower the vote for the Liberals. This group constituted the largest swing away from the Ontario Liberal Party.

But who are the large common-law family people? And what is their gripe with the Liberals? Too much decline of traditional family values under McGuinty? Not enough?