The latest polling from Mainstreet Research shows Dawn Gallagher Murphy stretching her lead over Chris Ballard as the NDP's projected share of the vote rises at the expense of the Liberals.

The NDP's Denis Heng is projected to take 12.5% of the vote. In the last provincial election on 2 June 2022 he got 12.7%.

I like Denis and if he were breathing down Gallagher Murphy's neck I'd be urging people to vote for him. But that's not the case here.

A vote for the NDP in Newmarket-Aurora will, of course, boost their vote share provincially and that's an important consideration.

But not at the expense of returning the phoney Dawn Gallagher Murphy to Queen's Park.

Tactical Voting

People have been in touch with me following my post on tactical voting.

In a perfect world I would urge people to vote for their first preference but with first-past-the-post the winner takes all and this can produce terrible distortions especially when an election is being contested by many parties. So here in Newmarket-Aurora the bully, hypocrite and fraud, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, wins even though most people didn't vote for her.

Tactical voting is, of course, unnecessary in proportional voting systems.

But we don't have one and we may never have.

Winter Election

And why are we having an election in the middle of our frigid winter?

The first February election since 1883.

Most of our elections are in the warm summer months or in the Fall. June is a favourite with 17 provincial elections since 1867.

Mandate

Ford claims he needs a new mandate to deal with Donald Trump. But we all know that's untrue. All the parties at Queen's Park without exception will bury their differences to fight Trump's tariffs. They've all said as much.

Ford doesn't want to fight an election in Ontario if his friend Pierre Poilievre is Canada's new Prime Minister (after a short interregnum with a new Liberal PM)

It is a remarkable thing that over the last sixty years the Party in power federally at the time has - with only one exception - failed to win power provincially. (The table is from the CBC)

So if Pierre Poilievre wins the Federal election later this year history suggests Ford's Progressive Conservatives would find it more difficult to secure re-election here in Ontario.

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Update on 18 February 2025: From Newmarket Era: Doug Ford ignoring bullying allegations against Dawn Gallagher Murphy says Ballard

Update on 19 February 2025: From Newmarket Today: "Silence is Complicity".  ELEVEN former employees of Gallagher Murphy are now demanding action is taken against her.

Newmarket Today's Joseph Quigley writes: 

"Allegations against Gallagher Murphy first surfaced in December, when former constituency manager Teena Bogner filed a complaint at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, alleging Gallagher Murphy unfairly fired her after she raised concerns to PC Caucus Services about alleged harassment. That case was settled before the election campaign began, but a group of employees then came forward and hired a PR firm to share their own negative experiences working with Gallagher Murphy.

Those allegations include verbal abuse, calling and demanding work at unreasonable hours, lashing out, name-calling, not tolerating mistakes and reprimanding clothing choices in front of other employees.

In the news release, the group also discusses allegations of racism. In one case, following a Black History Month event, the group alleged she referred to it as “woke bullshit.”