Olivia Chow tops Mayor Rob Ford in poll
Posted May 13, 2013 10:42 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new poll shows federal NDP MP Olivia Chow would beat out current Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in the 2014 municipal election.
Chow, a former Toronto councillor, hasn’t ruled out a run for Toronto’s top job and according to a Forum Research Inc. poll, she’s the favourite among voters.
“[But] it tends not to happen, that Ford would face just one candidate,” Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff told CityNews Channel.
“You can have a number of candidates running but what counts is who’s in at the end. If there are three or four candidates, it’s to the mayor’s advantage.”
The poll found that Chow would beat out Ford in all but one sample scenario.
If the two went head to head, Chow would capture 57 per cent of the vote, and Ford would get 36 per cent.
And if Chow and Ford went up against former provincial Tory leader John Tory, Chow would likely win, with 44 per cent of the vote.
However, if the centre-left vote was split – with candidates Adam Vaughan and Karen Stintz in the running – Ford would beat the three.
Vaughan and Stintz, who are city councillors, have not said if they are considering a run for mayor, but Stintz’s recent transit talk at the Toronto Region Board of Trade was seen as an early stump speech.
Chow, who is the NDP’s transportation critic, has been heavily involved in Toronto politics in recent months, campaigning for increased cycling safety and infrastructure funding.
Chow’s late husband Jack Layton was a Toronto city councillor before he joined the federal NDP to be the leader of the official Opposition. He died in August 2011. Chow’s stepson Mike Layton now sits on Toronto city’s council.
The next municipal election will be held in October 2014.
The survey, which was conducted Friday and polled 974 people, is accurate to within plus or minus three, 19 times out of 20.
