How many votes does someone really need to become mayor of Hamilton? As the second three-headed race in as many elections heads into its last week, it turns out the answer is simple: not many.
Bob Bratina won the 2010 election with 52,000 votes — just 14.9 per cent of the total 2010 voter base of 353,317. In a three-headed race, Bratina won by a margin of 12,593 votes, nearly exactly the same number of new voters that have been added to the 2014 voters list from 2010, which was 12,807. Where will those new voters go? What kind of Hamilton do they want?
The mayor's race is shaping up to be a similar three-headed dog fight. But where are there votes up for grabs? With Bratina and Di Ianni out, more than 92,000 people who voted last time will need to select a new candidate. And don't forget the almost 13,000 new voters, most of whom who live in the suburban areas of the city, a burgeoning group that can't be ignored.
CBC Hamilton has crunched the numbers for the past two elections, ward by ward, and compared those numbers with the new 2014 registered voter numbers to show you where the new votes are, where votes are up for grabs and to explore how candidates might exploit those openings.
| The 2010 election was won by Bob Bratina with 52,684 votes out of a possible 353,317 registered voters. The next closest competitor was not Fred Eisenberger (who had 38,719), but rather Larry Di Ianni with 40,091. Voter turnout was 40.45 %, about 143,000 votes cast. For the purpose of this analysis, CBC Hamilton split the city into five regions: the west, (Dundas and Westdale, Wards 1 &13), the downtown (Wards 2 & 3), the mountain (Wards 6, 7, 8), the east (including Stoney Creek, Wards 4, 8, 9 & 10) and the outer ring (including Ancaster, Wards 11, 12, 14 & 15). |
1. Hamilton's outer wards have more say than ever before
The city is obviously growing, but where? Based on registered voter numbers between 2010 and 2014, the largest growth areas are in Ward 11 (Glanbrook, Winona, Stoney Creek, 3,796 new votes) and Ward 2 (downtown, 2,573 new votes).
But if you look at the numbers in the four main regions, as defined above, voters list growth in the outer ring accounts for 58.2 per cent of all of Hamilton's growth. While the city as a whole grew at rate of 3.62 per cent, outside of the outer ring that number is a nearly stagnant 1.36 per cent.
That growth has translated into an area that has more say, by voters, than the downtown and west regions, combined.
2. Winning the outer ring has predicted the last 2 elections
Both Bratina and Eisenberger won the outer ring in each of their mayoral victories. In Bratina's 2010 victory, it was part of an upset of two former mayors. In Eisenberger's 2006 victory, he averaged 49 per cent of the vote in the outer four wards. In a victory margin of just 452 votes in 2006, Eisenberger beat Di Ianni by 3,231 votes in the outer ring.
3. Where are Bratina's votes up for grabs?
Bob Bratina's biggest margins of victory were in Wards 14 and 15 — both of which are on the outside ring of wards that surround the core, where he took more than 50 per cent of the vote, and an average 43.9 per cent in the four wards defined as the outer ring. According to a late September Forum Research poll, Brad Clark has polled the best in those areas. But the Forum poll warned they had "small" and "extremely small "sample sizes to work with. He did, however, also poll as the strongest candidate to take over Bratina's vote.
Bratina also had big chunks of the vote in Hamilton east, centre and downtown (Wards 2, 3 and 4) in 2010. Eisenberger beat out Di Ianni in each of those wards, except Hamilton east, where he lost by 0.7 per cent.
4. Downtown is the second largest section on the rise
Since 2010, more than 2,500 votes have been added in Ward 2 alone which accounts for one fifth of the new voters added in the past four years. The ward rebounded from negative growth between 2006 and 2010, a peroid in which is dropped more than 600 registered voters.
5. Downtown voter turnout is on the rise
Those new downtown voters hit the polls — between the 2006 and 2010 election, voter turnout went from 37.3 per cent to 40.5 per cent, city wide. In Ward 2, it jumped from 31.3 per cent to 40.4. In Ward 3, Hamilton centre, there was a similar rise, from a 2006 city-low 26.6 per cent turnout, to 31 per cent in 2010.
6. It's Fred's downtown to lose
With some 2,500 more votes added since 2010, the question is will those new voters come out and vote? It's an important number to watch on Monday's election. Consider the Forum poll has identified the downtown as an area where Eisenberger had his strongest base at the end of September. But that poll had majority of undecided voters across the city. The latest Oct. 20 poll showed an 11 point jump toward Brian McHattie up to a relative tie with Clark. Has that movement come from voters downtown? The new poll, conducted by Forum for the Hamilton Spectator, did not feature regional breakdowns.
7. Ancaster is also growing, and their new voters come out in droves
Adding 2,319 registered voters between 2006 and 2010, Ancaster had the second largest ward increase in available voters. Add in the fact that Ward 12 saw a 19.15 per cent jump in votes cast, those new voters made their voices heard at the polls. If you assume only the new registered voters accounted for that increase, the newest Ancaster residents had a 71.49 per cent turnout.
The 2014 voter registry numbers show the ward keeping pace, adding another 1,860 votes, roughly the same rise as between 2006 and 2010.
8. Di Ianni's Stoney Creek votes up for grabs
Larry Di Ianni took big chunks of the Stoney Creek, Redhill and Heritage Stoney Creek wards in the 2010 election. They were not landslides, but where will his support go? Clark's strongest base according to the Forum poll is in a ward that in 2010 voted 43 per cent for Di Ianni, and less than 15 per cent for Eisenberger (his worst ward in 2010). It's an NDP-based ward that typically votes to the left and Di Ianni has endorsed Eisenberger in his former stronghold, possibly opening the door for a ward Eisenberger has always lost to Di Ianni in.
9. Fringe candidates on the rise
In the past two elections fringe candidates made up roughly 14 per cent (2006) and just under seven per cent (2010) of the vote. Forum's poll from September said roughly 11 per cent would vote for someone other than the top-three. That number jumped to 16 per cent in Monday's poll, or one in every six Hamiltonians. At 40 per cent turnout, that represents roughly 23,000 votes—almost double the margin of Bratina's victory last time. While those fringe votes may not directly impact who wins, they do lower the barrier for how many votes it would take to make a mayor.
10. It's not as many votes as you might think
With some 520,000 people in Hamilton as of 2011 census, it took roughly a tenth of them to decide the last mayor. You might think that was a result of a three-headed race, but 2006's head-to-head race between Eisenberger and Di Ianni was won with 54,110 votes and less than a one per cent margin of victory (the population was 506,000 then). With voter turnout in the last three elections stable between 37 and 40 per cent, and the latest Forum poll putting all three candidates into the mix, a victory for the 2014 mayor could come with as few as 50,000 votes.
How will you be deciding your mayoral vote on election day, Oct. 27?
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