TORONTO

Mayor Rob Ford’s approval rating has taken a massive hit.

A Forum Research poll provided exclusively to the Toronto Sun on Wednesday pegs Ford’s approval rating at 39% — down from 49% last month and just 2% shy of his lowest approval rating which was recorded in October 2011.

Around 61% of those surveyed on Tuesday disapprove of the job Ford is doing as mayor.

Forum president Lorne Bozinoff attributed the approval rating drop to Ford writing character reference letters — one for his friend Alexander “Sandro” Lisi as part of his sentencing for threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and for a tow-truck driver once convicted of second-degree murder.

“He had a good month the month before, he got the subway going in Scarborough, he hit a home run on that but since then he got caught up in these letters,” Bozinoff said.

The poll found more than half of those surveyed take a dim view of Ford’s mayoralty — 39% describe him as “one of Toronto’s worst mayors” and 15% describe him as a “poor mayor.”

Around 18% of those polled described Ford as “one of Toronto’s best mayors” and another 18% described him simply as “good” while 9% opted for “neither a good nor a poor mayor.”

“The city is really polarized and really there is two camps in the city, there is the suburban driver and there is the downtown, former City of Toronto transit riding residents,” Bozinoff said. “They are really like two nations — there is Ford Nation and there is the other nation and they really don’t like each other.

“The anti-Ford Nation is really, really motivated ... they just hate the mayor.”

The poll also asked if people believe Ford’s boast that he’s saved $1 billion since taking office: 52% don’t believe Ford and only 30% think the claim is true.

But Ford isn’t the only one whose job approval rating is in the toilet.

The poll found 54% disapprove of the job city council is doing while only 35% approve.

Most of those polled do approve of their local councillor — 58% said they approve of the job their individual councillor is doing while 27% disapproved and 15% have no opinion.

The poll was an interactive voice response telephone survey conducted with 1,093 residents and is considered accurate within 3%, 19 times out of 20.