Looking back at his first year in office, Premier Doug Ford confidently declared that “Ontario is back on the right track.”

But according to a poll by Corbett Communications released on Thursday, the majority of Ontarians disagree.

The online sampling of public opinion among 1099 citizens of voting age, found that 6-in-10 (60 per cent) say the province is actually on the wrong track.

Of the 27 per cent who believe Ontario is on the right track, 34 per cent are men.

The poll, which was conducted between August 11 and August 13 and was released exclusively for CityNews and 680 NEWS, also found that if the election were held tomorrow, the Liberals would be tied with the Ontario PCs.

“Provincially, we are seeing a stubborn equilibrium; neither the recently chastened Liberals nor the governing PCs will relinquish first place to the other, while the official opposition waits just behind in case either stumbles,” said John Corbett, principal and founder of Corbett Communications.

“It is disturbing to see that fully six in ten voters think the province is on the wrong track,” he added in a release. “That’s an extraordinarily high level of dystopia, and it is safe to say it is related to similarly high levels of disapproval for the job the premier is doing and the relatively high negatives the party carries.”

Horwath approval almost twice as high as other leaders

Almost half of those polled (44 per cent) approve of the job Andrea Horwath is doing as leader of the opposition while interim Liberal leader John Fraser has the approval of 22 per cent. The Green Party’s Mike Schreiner has 25 per cent support, while Doug Ford has 24 per cent support, up slightly from last month when he dropped to a troublesome 20 per cent. But two thirds of the electorate, or 65 per cent, disapprove of Ford’s performance.

“Andrea Horwath continues to out poll her party strongly, while Doug Ford underpolls his party considerably,” Corbett concludes. “It’s as though the PCs are tied in first despite their leader, while the NDP aren’t, despite their leader.”

While Ford’s overall numbers continue to be on the low end, among PC supporters he remains the top choice for leader at 37 per cent. Christine Elliott trails at 16 per cent, with Caroline Mulroney at 8 per cent.

Ford’s policies hurting Scheer

It appears that Doug Ford’s unpopularity could hamper Andrew Scheer’s chances at the federal level. According to a separate Corbett Communications poll, almost 6-in-10 Ontarians polled (56 per cent) say they’ll be less likely to vote for Scheer because of Ford’s policies.

While just 1-in-7 voters say they support the policies of Donald Trump, 47 percent of them are also supporters of Ford.

“The relationship between Ford supporters and support for the policies of Donald Trump is interesting; it may offer a clue to the reluctance of many voters to support Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, given their associations,” Corbett said.

Methodology: As this is an opt-in sample, no margin of error is presented. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 3%, nineteen out of twenty times asking.