Mayoral front-runners neck and neck: polls
Posted October 18, 2010 9:08 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO, Ont. – It will be a frenetic final for the mayoral front-runners as two fresh polls have placed George Smitherman and Rob Ford in a dead heat, Monday.
In a poll by Nanos Research for the Globe and Mail and CTV, Ford was still ahead of Smitherman by four percentage points. In the other poll by Angus Reid for the Toronto Star and Citytv, Ford was ahead by just one point.
In the Nanos poll, Ford received 43.9 per cent of popular support, while Smitherman was at 40.5 per cent. Joe Pantalone had 15 per cent support among decided voters.
Nanos said that up to 18 per cent remained undecided, and said some will make up their mind as they drive to the voting booth.
“Perhaps four to five per cent of the likely Torontonian municipal voters will be going into the booth or making their decision driving to their polling station next week,” pollster Nik Nanos told 680News.
In the Angus poll, Ford had 41 per cent of popular support, while Smitherman was at 40 per cent. Pantalone had 16 per cent support.
“There’s a massive wake-up call for voters, but also for the other campaigns […] basically, what we’ve seen is Sarah Thomson and Rocco Rossi drop out and what I’ll say the non-Ford universe, if it does exist, coalesce behind George Smitherman,” Nanos said.
“So what we have with the week out is a two-way race, very tight, with two very different candidates offering competing visions for the city.”
