Why Trump's tariff threat dominated Ontario's election and left Ford's foes struggling

If Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford scores a major electoral victory tonight, it will likely vindicate a strategy that centred the election campaign on U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threat while overshadowing other key provincial issues, some analysts say.

"Tariffs and Trump is such a specific, top-of-mind issue," said Éric Grenier, a polls and elections analyst who writes The Writ newsletter. "For PCs, every poll shows that they're way ahead on that issue."

Polls indicate that Ford, whose campaign sold him as the only provincial leader who can protect Ontarians from the threat of U.S. tariffs imposed on Canadian goods, could be heading for an historic third majority win tonight.

Before the election was called, the PCs held 82 seats in the Ontario Legislature, followed by the NDP with 30, the Liberals with nine, Greens with two and one independent. 

Ford triggered the snap election saying he needed a new mandate to deal with Trump's threatened tariffs — 25 per cent tariffs on goods and 10 per cent tariffs on energy. And he has since taken on a so-called "Captain Canada" mantle, becoming the unofficial advocate for not just the province, but the country. He has travelled to Washington and appeared in U.S. media to make the case against tariffs. 

This immediate tariff threat meant that Ford benefited from the fact that the bulk of issues that consume Ontario's legislative focus and its budget — health care, education, housing and social services — never ended up being as central during the election campaign, according to Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, a political science professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

More importantly, the opposition party leaders were unable to make the problems within the health care or education systems stick to him, she said

"There's a lot of ammo here for the opposition parties to have really gone hard on for his record," Goodyear-Grant said. "How do you make that land when you have this behemoth to the south?"

Even when Trump implemented a 30-day tariff pause, the issue never really went away, she said.

"There was never not rhetoric from from Trump and his administration during the tariff pause that would have caused Ontarians or Canadians broadly to relax," Goodyear-Grant said. 

The threat of tariffs, was "so much in your face" that it gave Ford a much-needed focus of his campaign, Grenier said. "Anytime you turn on the news, Trump's there. It reminds people that Trump is an issue for the Ontario election. I think that's why it has dominated focus so much."

Meanwhile, other issues just didn't break through in this election because the tariff message and the underlying economic uncertainty in the province "is at the core of every voter's awareness," said Andrea Lawlor, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Much of the PC party's platform includes economically driven commentary on Ontario's potential for growth and employment trends, particularly as it relates to the potential impact of tariffs, she said.

The platform also includes recommendations of what Ontario will be advising the federal government to do in terms of recouping money from counter-tariffs.