Chow holds lead as other candidates struggle to close gap in final week of Toronto mayoral campaign: polls
With less than a week left until Election Day, Olivia Chow remains the front-runner in Toronto’s mayoral race, according to two polls released on Tuesday, and other leading candidates are running out of time to catch her.
In a poll by Mainstreet Research, Chow garnered 36 per cent support from decided voters – an increase of five percentage points from last Friday's numbers.
"It's hard to imagine at this point, anyone catching her," Quito Maggi, president and CEO of Mainstreet Research, said of Chow's lead.
He noted that voter turnout on June 26 will impact the results, predicting an "extremely low" number of ballots cast on election day. Nearly 130,000 Torontonians have already chosen their next mayor during advance voting earlier this month.
"It could be getting down to the short strokes of this being too late unless something dramatic happens in this week. A lot of votes are already banked. And I guess let's wait and see. Not much longer now," Maggi said.
Chow is way ahead of Ana Bailao and Mark Saunders, who are tied for second with 13 per cent support. Josh Matlow is right behind them with 12 per cent support.
"Who votes and from where in the city is going to really impact the actual results. So I've been looking at some of the early voter turnout and where it's coming from and which wards are the highest, and I believe that that will benefit the three downtown candidates most," Maggi said.
Mitzie Hunter and Anthony Furey received seven per cent support while Chloe Brown and "another candidate" got four per cent. Furey's support saw a decrease of four points.
Chow is also in the lead in the latest poll by Liaison Strategies, with her support among decided voters at 30 per cent – the same as it was in last week's Liaison poll.
Saunders, who has consistently finished in second place in Liaison polls for more than a month, remains at 16 per cent for the second consecutive week, up one percentage point from 15 per cent support from decided voters in Liaison's June 10 and 11 poll.
Matlow, who was tied with Saunders in second place at 16 per cent last week, saw the biggest drop in support among leading candidates. He now sits in third place with 13 per cent support.
Right behind him is Bailao at 12 per cent. She has seen a one percentage point increase in each of the past three Liaison polls and seems to be climbing at the right time. She is one of only two of the top seven candidates to see their highest Liaison polling numbers in the most recent iteration.
The other is Furey, who made the biggest leap of the top seven candidates compared to last week's poll, jumping two percentage points to 10 per cent.
Rounding out the top seven are Hunter at seven per cent and Brad Bradford at four per cent, who each dropped one percentage point compared to last week.
But the biggest winner in Liaison's most recent poll was the group of other candidates. Eight per cent of decided voters said they'd be voting for someone outside the top seven, up three per cent compared to last week's poll.
METHODOLOGY
For the Mainstreet Research poll, it is based on results of a survey conducted between June 17 and June 19 among a sample of 552 adults living in Toronto.
It was conducted using automated telephone interviews.
The margin of error is +/- 4.2 per cent at the 95 per cent confidence level.
Meanwhile, Liaison surveyed a random sample of 1,152 Torontonians through Interactive Voice Recording from June 17 to June 18, 2023.
Respondents were screened for voter eligibility, and were weighted using demographic and geographic information to targets based on the 2021 Census.
The margin of error for survey results is ± 2.89 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 for the total.
Josh Matlow (left) applauds a comment from Mitzie Hunter (centre left) as they are joined on stage by Olivia Chow (second left) Brad Bradford (centre right) Mark Saunders (second right) and Ana Bailao(right) at a Toronto Mayoral Candidates debate in Scarborough, Ont. on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
But the biggest winner in Liaison’s most recent poll was the group of other candidates. Eight per cent of decided voters said they’d be voting for someone outside the top seven, up three per cent compared to last week’s poll.
Torontonians will head to the ballot box to elect their next mayor on Monday, June 26.
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