#munipoli Matters SIDEPLATE - It's time for some mayoral polling!
Welcome to another edition of #munipoli Matters, where we cover the often under-reported arena of municipal elections, local politics and all the happenings in civic government.
There is finally some mayoral polling out, so this issue is dedicated to reviewing and dissecting those numbers. Cities such as Surrey, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Ottawa and even Vaughan have interesting mayoral elections due to retiring incumbents or just a wide field of high profile candidates.
Beg in mind, this is a snapshot of voter intentions in the middle to end of July and the elections are in October. Things can change depending on how the campaigns unfold.
Starting on the West Coast in Surrey, there are currently five high profile candidates running for Mayor besides incumbent Doug McCallum: Former MPs Gordie Hogg and Jinny Sims, current MP Sukh Dhaliwal and Councillor Brenda Locke.
Clearly the controversies surrounding McCallum combined with strong challengers with their own particular tribes has eaten away at the mayor’s support, putting him in third place in this poll.
Locke is leading with 22%, but that means almost nothing at this stage in the game when about a third of voters are undecided. With two South Asian candidates who are in elected office on the ballot, there is ample time to see how the community’s support is swayed in this election.
But while things are murkily divided in Surrey, the same cannot be said in Brampton, as Patrick Brown is on track to secure a second term in office.
Even if you included all votes (undecided, decided and leaning), Mayor Brown is still miles ahead of other potential challengers.
Liberal MP Ruby Sahota (Brampton North) recently said she would not be running for mayor, but former MP Ramesh Sangha has registered to run.
In the actual candidate field, Sangha and Brown are joined by Cody Vatcher, Jermaine Chambers, Bob Singh and Vidya Sagar Gautam.
But unless there is someone with a higher profile than this current crop, Patrick Brown, in spite of all the controversies and challenges, is the proverbial favourite to become Brampton mayor once again.
Another city that is looking like it’s getting a proverbial front-runner (for now), is Winnipeg, where Mayor Brian Bowman isn’t running for a third term. Former mayor Glen Murray is maintaining a substantial lead in two opinion polls. One from Probe Research showing Murray with 44%.
In Mainstreet’s poll, 44% are those who are undecided, but Murray is still in the lead. Charleswood-Tuxedo Ward Councillor Kevin Klein also recently joined the race prior to this poll being taken.
What these numbers show me is just because you came in second in 2018, like returning candidate Jenny Motkaluk, that doesn’t mean you will be as successful four years later, considering all the other people running.
Overall, the numbers are breaking down in a very traditional manner, with a former mayor in the lead, followed by Councillor Scott Gillingham and former MP Robert Falcon-Ouellette. But with 44% still undecided, things could change in the next few months.
Two other mayoral races in Hamilton and Vaughan, where incumbents are not running, former provincial party leaders in the proverbial driver’s seat…whether they are officially running or not.
In Vaughan, former Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca is shown, in a hypothetical scenario, to be leading the mayor’s race should he enter it.
Del Duca is included with the current registered candidates running for Vaughan mayor: Robert Gulassarian, Hiten Patel (who has since withdrawn), Parveen Bola and Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco. The former OLP chief leads with 22%, with Yeung Racco at 7% and Gulassarian at 6%.
This is another example of name recognition coming into play, with Del Duca starting off strong even with 63% undecided. But considering he is the most well known name on that candidate list, Del Duca starts off strong here.
A similar situation is occurring in Hamilton, with former NDP leader Andrea Horwath taking the lead only after recently entering the mayoral race as incumbent Fred Eisenberger isn’t running again. Horwath gets 37% of the vote in this survey (no graphics I’m afraid).
Keanin Loomis, the former head of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, gets second place with 14%, followed by former mayor Bob Bratina with 13% and “negligible support” for candidate Ejaz Butt. 35% of voters were undecided.
Finally for the nation's capital in Ottawa with Mayor Jim Watson ending his 12 years in office, Somerset Councillor Catherine McKenney is in the lead with 34% of the vote, followed by former broadcaster Mark Sutcliffe with 15%, former mayor Bob Chiarelli with 7%, with everybody else at miniscule levels of support.
McKenney's downtown ward was afflicted by the convoy occupation last winter; they were a prominent voice supporting earlier and firmer action to remove it.
Sutcliffe spent three decades in broadcast journalism in the Ottawa area, which explains the solid start he’s garnered since entering the race. When you’ve been on radio and television for 30 years, people tend to recognize the name.
What does this all really mean?
As stated earlier, these polls are only a snapshot (as of late July) about the state of play in the various mayoral elections across Ontario. Things could drastically change after the registration deadline should there be some surprise entrants in the races, or later deep during the campaign when another candidate captures momentum and surges ahead.
Those are the kinds of situations outlined by Hamilton local journalist Joey Coleman when it came to Calgary’s 2010 and Winnipeg’s 2014 mayoral elections. In Calgary, Naheed Nenshi went from 8% just under a month before the election to a gradual rise over two other more established candidates, culminating in a shocking win with 39.6% of the vote.
In the 2014 Winnipeg race, Bowman had only 6% of support. By late August to early September he increased his vote to double digits and then into second place. Two days before the election, Bowman was at 39%; he ended up winning with 47% of the vote.
Main takeaway is? Things can change on a dime, so don’t sleep on it.
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