Nobody likes to make predictions, as they inevitably risk the possibility of being wrong, however I'm going to stick my neck out and report on some first hand on the ground knowledge I've picked up. I think Olivia Chow, the NDP incumbent, is going to lose on October 14th to Liberal candidate Christine Innes in Trinity Spadina in downtown Toronto.

I've spent more time living in Trinity Spadina than any other riding, and I have many friends and family who still live and vote there. In fact Emily still wishes we lived in the riding so she could vote for Olivia Chow.

Whenever there's an election on you can guarantee I'm going to be active. When I was younger I would volunteer all of my free time for some party or candidate that I wanted to get closer to. This election I'm mostly doing non-partisan stuff, and talking to people informally and in social situations.

What I'm hearing in Trinity Spadina is that traditional NDP voters are switching to either Liberal or Green. One person I spoke with today who voted for Innes in an advance poll this weekend had voted NDP almost her entire life.

There are different reasons as to why people are not voting for Olivia, the most dominant however was not about leaders, or parties, but about local representation, and thoughts on what Olivia Chow as the Trinity Spadina Member of Parliament had achieved. What had she done for them, the voters, and the community. The people I spoke with felt she had been absent and not really doing the job they wanted an MP to do.

This is made worse by the fact that Olivia, as the wife of the party leader, is not able to be in the riding all the time or attend all the many all-candidates debates. Add to this the fact that the NDP are running a campaign that is all about the leader, which works on some levels, but he is giving Harper a run for the politician most likely to do the robot dance.

Then there are the folks who are switching to the Greens, led by Elizabeth May and represented locally by Stephen LaFrenie. It was clear to me watching the leaders debates that Elizabeth May would be perfect for the job of leader of the opposition. While this is not going to happen soon, I suspect a lot of others got to thinking that its safe to vote for the Greens in a riding where the Conservatives may end up fourth.

Given how close this riding has been in the past, all it would take is a bit of leakage from either the NDP or the Liberal vote for either to win. I'm predicting that the NDP will be the party to leak the most, and as a result the Liberals will win. I also think the Greens will finish third, however I'm less sure of that, as I have less anecdotal evidence to back that up.

Olivia Chow is a good politician, and a hard working representative for her constituents, even if the people I spoke with today believed otherwise. So if and when she does lose, I hope she returns to fight another day in another election.

I've also been digging around and chatting with folks in the other two ridings I've spent most of my life in, Davenport, and Parkdale - High Park. I'll write a post or two about them in the days to come.

Update: Fortunately I was wrong and Olivia won. :)