A strange thing is happening in my hometown of Toronto: After a summer of record lows, Rob Ford, our infamous mayor, is seeing an upswing in his poll numbers. If you’re anything like me, then you probably suspect that there’s an interesting trend driving the change. It’s possible to dismiss this as just an insignificant fluctuation as frustrated, disenfranchised voters shift their support between candidates ahead of the late-October election. Even if that’s all it ends up being, there are still a couple of pretty interesting electoral trends that are worth considering, and a pretty counterintuitive fact that underlies it all.