Though Mayor Rob Ford is ailing in hospital amid a serious health scare, a new poll shows he already has a healthy lead in the race for the Ward 2 seat.

Some 59 per cent of those polled Saturday in Etobicoke North said they intend to vote for Ford on Oct. 27, well ahead of the main challenger, businessman and community activist Andray Domise, with 26 per cent support.

A random sample of 474 voters in Ward 2 were polled the day after the former mayoral candidate entered the race Friday afternoon. The poll, due in part to the small sample size, has a margin of error of 5 per cent.

Though Ford was a late addition to the Ward 2 race, his early traction among Etobicoke North voters is no surprise.

“The Ford name carries a lot of weight,” said Lorne Bozinoff, the president and founder of Forum Research, the company that conducted the poll. “It is his old ward. He was the councillor there for a long time.”

But support for the Ford name extends beyond the Ward 2 seat. The poll of Etobicoke North voters shows latecomer Doug Ford is their top choice for mayor, with 49 per cent saying they plan to vote for him on election day.

Rob Ford’s announcement that he will run in Ward 2 deals a major blow to Domise, who had been trailing even against Michael Ford, the young media-shy Ford nephew with little work or political experience who dropped out of the ward race when his uncle stepped in. Some political observers had regarded Michael as a placeholder all along.

“It’s going to be a real uphill battle, and he’s got to really think about a new game plan,” Bozinoff said of Domise.

“Rob Ford is going to be a very formidable challenger. Even if Rob Ford is too ill to campaign, I think that he will win the seat from his hospital bed,” Bozinoff said.

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