Calgary's Mayoralty Race
Mayoralty Race Far From Certain, With One-in-Five (17%) Calgary Voters Currently Undecided
Calgary, AB - The results of an exclusive Ipsos-Reid/CFCN/Calgary Sun Municipal Politics poll show that overall Bev Longstaff begins the campaign with a notable 12 percentage-point lead over her closest rival for the Mayor's chair, fellow Alderman David Bronconnier. If the Municipal Election were held tomorrow, fully 28% of those interviewed say they would lean toward a vote for Longstaff, followed by Bronconnier at 16%, former Mayoralty Candidate and Alderman Ray Clark (11%) and Calgary MLA Richard Magnus with 7%. Further down the list we find Allan Hunter collecting 2% of the vote overall, Jim Delay (1%), Ricky Boucher (less than 1% overall) and various other individuals (2% combined). At this stage of the campaign, fully 16% of those interviewed say they are unlikely to vote for any of the current candidates (or that they would intentionally spoil their ballot), while nearly one-in-five (17%) say they are currently undecided about their vote.
Eliminating the "Undecideds" and "spoil ballots" provides the following "Decided Vote" totals for the candidates: Longstaff (42%), Bronconnier (25%), Clark (16%), Magnus (10%), Hunter (2%), Delay and Boucher (1% each) and various other individuals (3%).
Longstaff's edge over other mayoralty candidates is partially attributable to her high profile with the public - currently 88% of Calgarians are familiar with Longstaff (26% unaided awareness). Other candidates such as Ray Clark (76% aware of Clark, 7% unaided), David Bronconnier (63% awareness, 27% unaided) and Richard Magnus (48% awareness, 10% unaided) do not enjoy as high a profile as Bev Longstaff. The remaining candidates have yet to gain any significant profile among the public in Calgary. Fully 15% of the City reports that they have heard of Ricky Boucher and Jim Delay, followed by Allan Hunter (12%) and Derek Wilken (8% awareness overall).
Although Bev Longstaff's personal approval is comparatively strong among those who have heard of her, she does not lead this indicator, and actually has the highest personal "negatives" among the top four candidates for the Mayor's chair. At present, one-half (54%) of those aware of Longstaff say they approve of her as a candidate for Mayor (21% strongly). However, one-quarter (25%) of those questioned say they disapprove of Longstaff, while another 21% are uncertain. Although third in terms of public profile, David Bronconnier leads in terms of approval among those familiar with the alderman. Fully 58% of those who have heard of Bronconnier offer approval for his candidacy (24% strongly), compared to 16% who disapprove and 26% who are unsure. Meanwhile, Ray Clark receives approval from one-half (49%) of those aware of him, 21% disapprove and 30% are unsure. Rounding out the top four, Richard Magnus' candidacy receives approval from 43% of those aware of it (14% strongly), while 24% disapprove and 33% are uncertain.
Due to the small number of survey respondents aware of their campaigns (and the high number of "don't knows" offered compared to approve/disapprove), the approval ratings for the remaining mayoralty candidates lack adequate statistical reliability for meaningful commentary.
Finally, the pre-campaign poll assessed the present state of "ballot negativity" for the candidates for Mayor (i.e. the extent to which voters say they could NEVER support one candidate or another). On this front, we find that 39% of Calgarians say they could support any of the candidates (they don't rule any of them out), while another 30% are uncertain. Bev Longstaff registers the most negative response from voters, with 12% saying they could never vote for her. Longstaff is followed by Bronconnier, Boucher, Magnus and Clark, each mentioned by 4% of eligible voters. Next on the list is Wilken, Hunter and Delay (3% each), while 4% of voters mention some other potential candidate.
These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CFCN/Calgary Sun poll conducted between September 7th and 11th, 2001. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 400 adult Calgarians. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population in Calgary been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's age/sex composition reflects that of the actual city population according to Statistics Canada Census data.
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Marc Henry
Vice President
Ipsos-Reid
403.237.0066 (Calgary)
780.944.9164 (Edmonton)
