The sudden surge in support for the NDP is a result of voters turning away from Doug Ford who still haven’t taken a close look at Andrea Horwath’s plan for the province, says Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne.

In a sit-down interview with the Star on Friday — the halfway mark of the election campaign — Wynne said the first two-plus weeks have been hard “in the sense that people have been figuring out what Doug Ford is about and a lot of them have moved to Andrea and the NDP.

“And I think now, because they are there, they are sorting out what does she actually stand for. I think we’re seeing a lot of movement.”

Wynne believes that as “people look at us and the NDP, the differences between our two plans are going to become clearer. That’s what people will be asking for now — so show me how you’re different from them and why should I come back to you? That’s basically the question that I’m going to have to answer over and over again” in the last two weeks before the June 7 election.

The Liberal plan, she said, is “practical and it builds on the successes of what we’ve done for the last five years.”

Earlier in the day, speaking to reporters, Wynne had been asked about her party’s sinking poll numbers, and she said she is “absolutely not” going to give up.

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On Friday, a new poll put the NDP in the lead, ahead of the PCs and well ahead of the Liberals, but Wynne says she and her party are fighting for every seat.

“Then there was another poll that had us all within 10 points,” she told the Star. “So it’s really unclear right now where people are going to land having decided that Ford is not the way they want to go.”

Despite the bad news about her party’s fortunes, Wynne got a boost at a rally of several hundred party faithful in Scarborough on Thursday night, including glowing introductions from federal Liberal ministers Chrystia Freeland and Jane Philpott.

The Liberals will release their platform in the coming days, though most of it was already set out in the spring budget. Wynne said Ford’s lack of a platform has turned off voters.

“I think the people of Ontario have seen through him. They saw very quickly that there wasn’t much substance to what he was suggesting and that, in fact, there was a lot of risk in what he was putting forward, and that’s why we’re seeing the volatility in the voter intention now.”

Ford has said the Progressive Conservatives will release one before voters head to the polls.

Wynne has kept a brisk pace during the campaign with several events a day — barely stopping to celebrate a milestone birthday last week. “My team was very kind; there was lots of sugar. But having a birthday during the campaign means you just kind of fly past it.”

Her best moments on the trail are when she gets to “hold some of the new babies who have come out to some of the events” and when she sees all the volunteers in riding campaign offices.

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The worst? “Seeing those darn polls on the front of the newspapers, because we know, I know that there are lots of different things happening.

“But the polls are, in some ways, they are not a true reflection of what’s going on, so that becomes something that I have to respond to instead of being able to talk about” issues.

This election campaign is also Wynne’s first without her friend and mentor, Sheila Ward, who served as a trustee alongside Wynne on the Toronto District School Board when Wynne began her political career. Ward died two years ago.

“I miss her enormously, I have to say,” Wynne said of Ward, who was a sounding board known to swear to get her point across.

“Because she was that strategic voice that was kind of outside the fray — she wasn’t part of the team, the day-to-day stuff. When I talked to her, I would get fresh eyes … she told it as she saw it, for sure. There would be cursing, for sure."

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