Toronto mayoral hopeful Doug Ford is closing in on front-running rival John Tory while Olivia Chow continues to lag behind both candidates, a new poll suggests.
Ford -- who entered the mayoral race after his ailing brother Rob Ford dropped out last month -- is essentially tied with the former Ontario PC leader, a new Forum Research Poll shows.
According to the latest numbers, Tory has the support of 39 per cent of voters while Ford has 37 per cent. Their rival Chow has 22 per cent.
"This is a shocking upset indeed. Doug had a fairly good week last week, but his partisans clearly think he had a great week," Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff said in a statement.
The telephone poll had a sample size of 1,218 Toronto voters and was conducted on Monday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Ford's gain in the latest poll contrasts sharply with the results from the last Forum survey on Sept. 29. In that poll, Tory clearly had the lead with 43 per cent of support from voters, while Ford had 33 per cent and Chow had 20 per cent.
Tory's seemingly eroding lead in the mayoral race may be the result of attacks from both Ford and Chow in recent weeks.
"John Tory is the guy in the middle. He is the frontrunner and he has been taking hits from both sides. We have seen Olivia Chow really going after him, and I think she has started to be effective with those attacks," Bozinoff said Tuesday afternoon.
