“One of the differences between the federal and provincial elections in Ontario is that the disproportionality of the youth vote for the NDP was higher in the federal election,” said Nelson Wiseman, associate professor of Political Science at U of T. “I think that's because a lot of people vote strategically. Voters in the provincial election concluded that the NDP couldn't overtake the Liberals, so if their priority was to keep the Progressive Conservatives out, they favoured the Liberals over the NDP. Federally, that trend reversed in the end because a lot of people had given up on the Liberals.”

While McGuinty may be premier yet again, his Liberals are no longer a majority force in the Legislative Assembly, albeit just barely. They only earned 53 of the 107 seats available, having lost 17 of the 70 seats earned four years ago. But the results seem more likely to reflect a dwindling faith in McGuinty's administration, rather than a drastic shift of power into either PC or NDP hands. This may not only indicate a lack of faith in the Liberal platform, but an insidious burgeoning sense of voter apathy as well.

CBC reports that the voter turnout for the election was a record low 49.2%, sinking below even the previous nadir of 52.8% set in 2007's general election. Only 18.4% of eligible voters chose the Liberals, while more than half of the remaining population evidently chose not to bother.

The reasons for the embarrassing turnout figures are not easy to pinpoint, but the disconnect between civic obligation and political passion could be a key factor. In lieu of strongly identifying with a particular platform to rally behind, those who abstained possibly lacked adequate incentive to vote since no party truly championed their concerns.

For many young voters who tend towards the NDP - that warm and inviting orange tide which less than six months ago swept over the Liberals in the most recent federal election - their performance on Thursday does not at all seem to reflect the palpable momentum they've gained on the national scale. They may have gained seven seats and the most influence they've had since 1995, but for a party thought to be riding the “Orange Crush,” the results are underwhelming.

With federal successes and provincial stumbling, some curious eyes are now fixed upon the Ontario New Democrats. “The long term questions surrounding the NDP seem to revolve around their base shifting from downtown Toronto toward Brampton and parts of Mississauga and Scarborough,” said Wiseman. “The NPD has generally done well among poor folk, and poor folk increasingly can't afford to live in the downtown core. They live in the margins of the city, and it was interesting to me that the NDP won a seat in the 905 which they've never won before. I think that might be a harbinger of things to come.”

In the meantime, the Liberals have a stranglehold in urban centres while the PCs retained the support of rural areas. And while the NDP collects themselves, one thing remains clear: nobody – neither the government nor its opposition parties – wants another election.