Polls indicate 'volatile' Toronto mayoral campaign as Doug Ford enters race

Source: Guardian

Polls indicate 'volatile' Toronto mayoral campaign as Doug Ford enters race

• Contradictory polls place Ford at 34% and 16%
• Ford replaced brother Rob who is suffering from tumour

Nicky Woolf in New York
theguardian.com, Saturday 13 September 2014 16.17 EDT

Polls on Saturday showed the Toronto mayoral race to be “volatile”, with surveys showing differing reactions to the shock announcement on Friday that Rob Ford would drop out of the race, to be replaced by his brother Doug.

The current mayor, who became world-famous last year after videos surfaced of him smoking crack cocaine, dropped out after doctors found a tumour in his abdomen.

A poll by Forum Research conducted on Friday night showed Doug Ford in a strong second place in the race to be mayor of Toronto, with 34% of the vote behind frontrunner John Tory’s 41%. Another poll also conducted on Friday evening, by Mainstreet Technologies, showed Ford lagging behind both Tory and Olivia Chow, with just 16% of the vote.

The Mainstreet poll, which involved 1,054 respondents, puts Ford in third place, after Tory (45%) and Chow (27%). Chow’s best demographic was in ages 35-44, but even there she lagged 10 points behind Tory, 32%-42%. If voters who said they were not fully decided were removed from the poll, Ford’s support rose to 18%, Tory to 51% and Chow to 30%.




Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/13/polls-volatile-toronto-mayoral-campaign-doug-ford