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Former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford was the first in the race, announcing his anti-elites campaign for leader on Monday. If Elliott, Mulroney and Phillips all join him in the campaign, Elliott will be the only mild surprise. Some thought she was happy in her role investigating patients’ complaints about Ontario’s medical system, and wouldn’t want to jeopardize it. But many in the party had been cajoling her to run, as she brings experience in the legislature, centrist bona fides and name recognition to the table — a boast no other declared candidate can make.

Photo by Hannah Yoon / Canadian Press

“Pretty clear message that there’s a base for Doug Ford and there’s a base for Christine Elliott,” said pollster Greg Lyle of Innovative Research, referring to data he published this week. In his survey 24 per cent of respondents picked Elliott among their top three choices in a hypothetical field of nine candidates, while 16 per cent had Ford and Mulroney in their top three.

Elliott, a lawyer by trade, had the highest “net favourability” rating at plus-26 per cent: just five per cent of respondents said they had a negative view of her, while 31 per cent had a positive one. Ford’s rating, by contrast, was minus-26.

Lyle polled the general public, however, not party members, and this would be Elliott’s third attempt at the leadership running as a centrist voice of reason. In the 2009 race, she criticized eventual winner Tim Hudak as a throwback to the party’s mid-1990s glory years: “What happened in 1995 is not the solution for 2009,” she said. “We have to grow our party.” That message was good enough for third place behind both Hudak and social-conservative candidate Frank Klees.