Tory stable, Ford falls back

TORONTO OCTOBER 15th, 2014 - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1241 Toronto voters, 4-in-10 will vote John Tory if the city's mayoral election were held today (39%) a proportion which has stayed stable since last week (October 6 - 39%). During this period, the proportion voting Doug Ford has decreased from close to 4-in-10 (37%) to one third now (33%), and a 2 point gap has widened threefold to 6 points. Olivia Chow's support has stayed stable at just less than a quarter of voters (23% now, 22% last week) and the proportion who will vote another candidate has doubled (from 2% to 4%).

Candidate approval is steady

Doug Ford's approval is characteristic of 4-in-10 voters (40%), similar to last week (43%) but down from two weeks ago (September 29 - 45%). Olivia Chow's approval is up very slightly from 4-in-10 last week (42%) to closer to one half this week (46%). In the meantime, John Tory has seen his approval stabilize at just more than half (53% last week, 55% this week).

"While John Tory is not increasing his vote share, neither is he losing share, which Doug seems to have done after two very strong weeks. It may be that those strong weeks scared some support back to the Tory camp. The one thing for sure is, Olivia Chow is not seen as the anti-Doug," said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff.

Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416) 960-9603.