VANCOUVER—Adriane Carr has solidified her lead as the favoured mayoral contender for Vancouver, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The poll by Research Co. shows that Carr’s support has grown to 35 per cent, up nine points compared to a similar poll conducted three weeks ago. The poll results are based on an online survey of 400 Vancouver residents conducted April 28-30, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Carr is the only Green Party councillor sitting on council, but she hasn’t officially declared her candidacy for mayor. She’s hoping to get support from other centre-left and left-wing parties as the “unity” mayoral candidate, in hopes of avoiding splitting the left and giving the centre-right Non-Partisan Association a chance to win a majority on council.

“I’m excited ... and what I love, too, is that support is coming from all quarters: all age groups, all income categories, renters, (home)owners,” Carr said on Wednesday in response to the poll results.

Other mayoral hopefuls who have double-digit support include Raymond Louie, a Vision Vancouver councillor, at 19 per cent; Hector Bremner, an NPA councillor and declared mayoral candidate, at 11 per cent (up five); and Kennedy Stewart, NDP MP for Burnaby South (10 per cent).

The NPA has a good chance of winning if the four progressive parties (the Greens, Vision Vancouver, OneCity and Coalition of Progressive Electors) can’t find a way to present a united front, said Mario Canseco, president of Research Co.

That’s because one-third of poll respondents said they wanted the NPA to win, compared with one-third who said they absolutely wouldn’t support the NPA and the one-third of respondents who were undecided.

“There’s this core group that will vote for the NPA no matter what,” Canseco said.

In an interview last week, Carr said she hoped to hear from all the parties by the end of this week, but said the Greens are not prepared to enter into a formal agreement that would set out how many candidates each party would run.

On Saturday, OneCity tweeted that they had decided not to support Carr as a mayoral candidate. COPE also continues to decline to support her, Carr said on Thursday. She is hopeful the two parties will change their position, because she’s not willing to run as mayor without the support of COPE, Vision and OneCity.

Carr said she is still waiting to hear from Vision Vancouver, the centre-left party that has held power in the city for a decade, but has seen their support slide recently.

Despite the jockeying amongst the various centre-left and left-wing parties, Canseco said based on the poll results, there appears to be strong public support for the parties to come together; 50 per cent of respondents who supported Vision, the Greens, OneCity or COPE in the past wanted to see a unity candidate for mayor.

That desire likely stems from “disappointed” voters who may have voted for Green candidate Pete Fry or independent Jean Swanson in the October 2017 byelection, Canseco said, but then saw the NPA’s Hector Bremner win the council seat with fewer votes than Fry and Swanson’s combined vote total.

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Jen St. Denis is a Vancouver-based reporter covering affordability and city hall. Follow her on Twitter: @jenstden

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