An anybody-but-Ford movement is percolating as the June 7 election draws closer, with Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals at the biggest risk of being left behind, suggests a poll provided to the Star.

Swaths of Liberal and NDP voters most firmly opposed to Doug Ford are preparing to switch allegiance if the other party appears to have a better chance of stopping his Progressive Conservatives, said Craig Worden, president of Pollara Strategic Insights.

The likelihood is stronger in Toronto than in the rest of the province and is a red flag to the Liberals because they have a higher percentage of voters motivated mainly by anti-Ford sentiments than Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats, Worden added.

Read more:

Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: The campaigns behind the Ontario 2018 campaign

Ford spars over immigration with Wynne and Horwath at northern debate

Opinion | Rosie DiManno: A grieving mother’s letter to Doug Ford

“The Liberals may stand to lose many ridings in their base of Toronto.”

Overall, the poll conducted May 3 and 4 found Ford ahead with the support of 40 per cent of decided voters to 30 per cent for the NDP and 23 per cent for Wynne, as has been previously reported.

A further breakdown of the results shows that province-wide, 60 per cent of NDP voters motivated to back Horwath by their opposition to Ford said they are likely to switch to the Liberals if necessary, while 78 per cent of Liberal voters were ready to back New Democrat candidates.

The percentages are higher in the province’s largest city.

“It really stood out that, in Toronto, (of) the anti-Ford voters who are Liberals, 84 per cent said they’re likely to switch to the NDP if it means they look like they’re going to be the most likely to stop Doug Ford,” Worden said. “And 92 per cent of the NDP feel the same. But the thing is, the Liberals have a bigger chunk of voters who are anti-Ford than the NDP.”

Among Liberal voters, 46 per cent said they were driven by anti-Ford feelings, while just 26 per cent of NDP voters described themselves the same way.

“If these numbers were to hold, and voters switch to the NDP from the Liberals, that would allow the PCs to gain seats in a city where they’ve been effectively shut out since the Harris days,” Worden said.

Ford, who took aim at Horwath before a leaders’ debate Friday in Parry Sound, is promising income tax cuts along with a $6-billion cut in government spending.

“You think Kathleen Wynne’s bad? She’ll even be worse …. Everyone remembers the dreaded NDP years … destroyed the province, raised taxes, literally destroyed the economy. We don’t want that to happen again,” Ford said in reference to the Bob Rae government, which was mired in the recession from 1990 to 1995.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Both the Liberals and New Democrats are trying to position themselves as the best alternative for progressive voters worried about the future of government services such as health, education and child care.

Wynne’s rallying cry has been “care, not cuts” while Horwath notes “people want change this time around. And it becomes very clear, then, that the choice for change is between Mr. Ford or myself. And Mr Ford will absolutely drag this province backwards.”

The Pollara poll was an online survey of 1,011 Ontarians who identified themselves as eligible to vote in the election. Pollara said a sampling frame and statistical weighting were applied to the survey to ensure the sample’s regional, age, and gender composition accurately reflected that of the Ontario population according to the most recent Census.

Because the sample is not a probability sample, a margin of error cannot be applied to the survey. As a general guideline, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20. Regional and demographic sub-segments of the total sample carry larger margins of error, with the Toronto sample at plus or minus 6.4 per cent.

Read more about: