It might be now or never for Andrea Horwath

Andrea Horwath started the campaign last Wednesday the old-fashioned way.

Standing in front of an unmissable orange bus and facing Queen's Park, the building she’s worked in for 18 years, the leader of the Ontario New Democrats held a quick scrum with reporters.

During it, she used one of her go-to lines: "We do not need to promise the stars and the moon to actually get to the things that people care most about."

She then energetically hopped aboard her self-branded tour bus and took off.

Later that morning, the election writs were drawn, officially launching Ontario's 2022 election campaign. As leader, it’s Horwath’s fourth — an unusual number for the head of a major party who's never won an election.

The party thinks this is her best chance to finally do so and become Ontario's premier. If she doesn't, she could face a very different challenge — one to her leadership.

Between campaign stops in Bowmanville on the first Saturday of the campaign, Horwath set aside about 20 minutes for an interview with QP Briefing.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is interviewed by QP Briefing reporter Charlie Pinkerton aboard the party's 2022 campaign bus on May 7. (Ontario NDP photo)

Asked off the top whether her priority in this election is to remove Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives (PCs) from power or to become premier herself, she was cagey at first. When pressed, however, she answered: "Let's put it this way: Job No. 1 is definitely to get rid of Doug Ford."

A week into the 28-day campaign period, polls suggest that will be a challenge.

The PCs are projected to win a majority, according to 338Canada, which aggregates polling data to make predictions. The NDP is in third place in Ontario, a few points behind the rehabilitated Ontario Liberal Party.

So why vote NDP? Horwath's pitch is quite simple. As she says, if you can’t stand Ford, vote NDP, and, if you’re a lefty (a.k.a. a progressive-leaning voter) on the fence, New Democrats should also be your pick, because Liberals have proven over 15 years in government that they're good at making promises, less so at delivering them.

In one of her stronger moments in the leaders' debate in North Bay on Tuesday, she made a tweaked version of the above pitch to the audience: "(Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca) wants to say they're a new party now, and I get it; he doesn't want anybody looking in the rear-view mirror, because they left a wreck back there in northern Ontario," Horwath said, broadly referring to the former Liberal government's neglect of the north.

"Doug Ford has had four years, and things have gotten worse."

When it comes to policy, Horwath is relying on voters to approve of her party's three main goals, the first being to fix public health care, including by expanding mental-health and dental care and covering the cost of pharmaceutical drugs faster. The second is to improve seniors' care by banning the for-profit operation of nursing homes and by providing more home care. And the third is to lower the cost of living by making housing more affordable, including rents, as well as everyday expenses such as groceries and insurance.

"(My priority) is for people to get the things they need, finally, in this province," Horwath says. "That's what has always motivated me to run, (and) that's why I continue to do what I do, because we see life getting harder. I know it's part of my shtick, but it's actually the truth."

Despite the polls, New Democrats say they're the closest they've been in decades to acting on these plans.

The party entered the election as the official Opposition, a position it hasn't held since before Bob Rae's premiership, which lasted from 1990 to 1995. Rae was Ontario's first and only NDP premier.

Horwath likes to point out that the NDP came first or second in 100 out of 124 ridings in the last election, and that New Democrat candidates were behind the leader by five per cent of the vote or less in 11 ridings, including 10 won by PC candidates. The party is also determined to spend the most it ever has on a campaign.

But there's the glass-half-empty way of viewing the NDP's chances, as well.

Former federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair similarly claimed that, as the official Opposition, his party was in the best position to topple Stephen Harper's government. Harper lost, but a guy named Justin Trudeau won, not Mulcair.

The Ontario NDP's strong results from four years ago are also precisely that — from the last election. There's no getting around where polls place them today, which is surrendering seats to the Liberals while also being a long way from deposing Ford. If the Liberals surge, things could turn disastrous for the NDP, because the two parties typically seek support from the same voter pool. For half a century, this has meant one party's electoral success coming at the expense of the other's.

From left, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, PC Leader Doug Ford, and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath debate each other in North Bay on May 10. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star)

Nevertheless, Horwath and the NDP are seeing their strategy through — so far, at least.

Her polling numbers are stronger than her counterparts', putting her front and centre. This is true both in the party's election ads and on the hustings. With a handful of public outings a day, Horwath's campaign schedule is more strenuous than either Del Duca's or Ford's. In her first week on the trail, she made near-daily policy announcements, engaged in classic beer-pour politicking, and paid many, many visits to candidates' campaign offices.

Then there's the NDP's not-so-secret weapon: Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal NDP and Horwath's former caucus subordinate.

Outside an Eid al-Fitr celebration that he and Horwath attended two days before the campaign started, Singh told QP Briefing he'd be a "regular" campaigner for the Ontario NDP, which he's become. For more than a week, he's been doing the rounds in Ontario, joining candidates from his former provincial party in campaign activities almost every day. Some days he's almost as busy selling the vision of Horwath as premier as Horwath is herself.

Horwath has been offensively campaigning, meaning she's focusing her energies on ridings the New Democrats could pick up, not just retain. An NDP-campaign strategist said this is why Horwath has spent so much time in Peel, for example, where there are 11 seats in Brampton and Mississauga. New Democrats won three in the last election, lost by less than eight per cent of votes in another three, and by 14 per cent or less in another four.

When asked about her campaign strategy while riding through the constituency of Durham, which includes Bowmanville, Horwath said, "We're coming to places like this — where we came second — to show people they really do have a choice that can get rid of Doug Ford." The NDP were about 15 per cent behind the PCs in Durham in 2018. Incumbent Lindsey Park isn't running for re-election.

The NDP needs to win a chunk of such ridings to topple Doug Ford.

The party plans to make Horwath premier by relying on most of its incumbents getting re-elected, and by taking a double-digit number of seats from the PCs, the strategist explained. (QP Briefing agreed to let him speak on background so he could share strategic details.) They're also banking on the Liberals taking at least a few seats from Ford's PCs.

Neither Horwath nor Del Duca has ruled out working together in the next parliament, but they haven't actually discussed it.

When asked last Saturday how she feels personally about Del Duca, Horwath said the two "don't really know" each other, even though both were MPPs in the six years before the 2018 election.

During the campaign's first few days, NDP staff were annoyed that Del Duca was campaigning in ridings with New Democrat incumbents.

The impact of some possibly consequential campaign moments — Ford's first debate, the uncovering of PC MPPs' "allowances," and PressProgress's explosive report that Education Minister Stephen Lecce participated in a "slave auction" while at university — hasn't solidified yet, but the New Democrats do face a problem at the end of Week 1.

No poll or projection shows them headed for the result they're hoping for.

If Horwath is unsuccessful on June 2, another problem could be around the corner. Some members of the NDP's grassroots have been growing frustrated with how she's run the party.

After QP Briefing reported two weeks ago on the frustrations of three NDP devotees who were prevented from running as candidates, more disgruntled party activists reached out, or referred others connected to the party. Among them was Jessa McLean, a longtime party activist and former federal NDP candidate who ran in a 2019 byelection in York—Simcoe.

She provided a list of 19 Ontario NDP riding associations that haven't seen eye-to-eye with the party's centralized leadership at the approach of this election. There are 124 ridings in Ontario. QP Briefing hasn't independently verified claims about each one.

In the last few weeks, another five NDP sources at the grassroots level said many riding associations have clashed with the central party in recent months, and that many party activists, including executives of riding associations, are feeling increasingly isolated by the party's leadership. The main reasons they've cited are what they see as interference with riding associations' choice of candidates, and the NDP not being far enough to the left.

"Something drastic would have to change within the party for them to come back," McLean said, referring to grassroots activists feeling disconnected from the party.

Each NDP source who reported feeling disenfranchised said Horwath's leadership will be challenged if she loses this election.

Eighty-five per cent of party delegates who cast a ballot in the NDP's leadership vote in February supported her leadership.

QP Briefing asked Liberal and PC sources how threatened their parties feel by Horwath. Opinions varied.

Cole Hogan, who ran the PCs' digital-advertising campaign in 2018, said his party wasn't worried about Horwath until about two weeks before the last election. At the time, polls showed a collapse in Liberal support and a surge for the NDP. In response, Hogan and the PCs unleashed a barrage of online ads pointing out NDP candidates' questionable pasts, comments, and photos.

"There wasn't a particular threat from Horwath herself," said Hogan, who added that the PCs concluded from polls that voters were attracted to her experience. To combat this, the PCs tried to show NDP candidates weren't "ready for prime time," Hogan said.

One Liberal source who worked on the party's 2018 campaign thought highly of Horwath as an opponent. "Her political skills are very, very good," the source said. "It's not easy to stay in leadership for 13 years."

Another Liberal source disagreed. "We know where (Horwath) will excel, (but) we know she will bore people. People tune her out, so I think we are happy with her."

The two sources were promised anonymity so they could speak bluntly, despite their continued involvement with the Liberals.

NDP sources who are frustrated with the party mentioned possible successors to Horwath, but didn't know of anyone actively trying to supplant her.

When asked what her plans are if she doesn't win the election, Horwath replied: "I'm very anxious for June 2 to see what the people of Ontario decide.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath greets supporters after making an announcement in Toronto on April 3. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

"What I can guarantee is that I'll never stop fighting for people; I will not stop," she said. "That's why I'm so focused on winning this election. It's not for ourselves; it's so we can start building more affordable housing, ... so we can stop privatizing our long-term-care system. ... That's why we're singularly focused on these next couple of weeks: to show people they can have these things."

Horwath has dedicated her life to progressive politics.

The daughter of an autoworker and a school cleaner, she's said she didn't grow up wanting to be a politician. She studied labour studies at McMaster University, later teaching English to immigrant workers and working in a legal clinic in her hometown of Hamilton.

She was also a grassroots activist, and got talked into running for federal office for the first time in 1997. She lost that election to the Liberal incumbent of almost 10 years. Later that year, she ran for city council and won.

Seven years later, in 2004, she made the jump to provincial politics by stealing a seat from the Liberals in a byelection.

Before that, the party was below what it needed for official party status. She became its leader in March 2009, a position she's held ever since. She's increased the NDP's seat count in each of the three previous elections.

"Since (2009), our party ... has really grown," Horwath said. "We have so many more young people engaged. We have people from every ethno-cultural, faith-based, racial group. We have women. We have people with disabilities. We have LGBTQ people. We have Indigenous folks in our party.

"I'm proud of it as the leader. I didn't do it on my own; I certainly did it with the help of other people, but the party itself not only has grown, but it's grown into the organization I think it's always aspired to be, and I'm very proud of that."