Tory, Chow stable from prior polls

TORONTO SEPTEMBER 12th, 2014 - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1228 Toronto voters on the remarkable day when Rob Ford withdrew from the Toronto mayoral race due to illness and was replaced by his brother, more than one third (34%) will vote for Doug Ford, while just more than 4-in-10 will vote John Tory (41%). Olivia Chow has the support of just one fifth (19%). Few would vote for someone else (3%) or do not have an opinion (3%). This stands in contrast to our previous poll of September 8, when John Tory had 4-in-10 votes (40%) to less than 3-in-10 for the Mayor (28%) and one fifth for Chow (21%). Of note, Doug Ford's support increased from just one third (33%) before 7:00 PM this evening to more than this (36%) after he began addressing the public at 7:00 PM.

In the event it becomes a two-person race, more than half would vote for John Tory (52%) to 3-in-10 for Olivia Chow (29%).









Tory leads in approval, Doug and Rob Ford trail

All three candidates are known to more than 9-in-10 voters, and among these, two thirds approve of John Tory (66%), one half approve of Olivia Chow (47%) and somewhat fewer approve of Doug Ford (42%). This is in contrast to his brother Rob, who received an approval rating of one third (34%) a week ago. In what is clearly a sympathetic response to his illness, 4-in-10 voters now approve of Rob Ford (40%).





Ford Nation is one third of voters

When we ask the voting question with no other contenders (the Ford Nation question) for Doug Ford, one third respond affirmatively (34%), and this is an increase from his brother's last result at 3-in-10 (29%). Of those who approve of Rob Ford, 8-in-10 (80%) will vote Doug in October and are members of Ford Nation, and this must be considered a very successful transference of political loyalty. Once again, the proportion saying yes to this question increased after 7:00 PM, when Doug Ford made his public announcement (from 33% to 36%).

"Doug has the advantage of entering the campaign late and not having a record of four years as mayor to defend. He can take the weekend, regroup and announce policy on Monday, when people are ready to listen. He appears to have swept up virtually all of Ford Nation with him, so we see no reason why he won't continue to do as well, or even outperform the mayor, at least for the first weeks of the new campaign. Six weeks is forever in politics, as we learned this week, and Doug has time to shine or stumble," 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.

