Jim Watson Leads Handily in Mayoral Race, With Or Without Incumbent O'Brien in the Race

Ottawa, ON - In a head-to-head mayoral race between Jim Watson and Alex Cullen, a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted exclusively for the Ottawa Citizen has revealed that Watson would best Cullen by a significant margin. In a showdown, the poll suggests that mayoral candidate Jim Watson would receive support from 56% of Ottawa residents compared to just 16% of residents who would vote for Alex Cullen. One in ten (9%) residents say they would vote for some other candidate who surfaced, while two in ten (19%) don't know who they would support in a head-to-head race.

Current Mayor Larry O'Brien has recently stated that he will wait until city council has voted on the Lansdowne Park redevelopment plan before announcing whether he will run for re-election. However, if he entered the race against Watson and Cullen, the poll reveals that Jim Watson (41%) would still have a sizeable lead over incumbent Larry O'Brien (23%) and hopeful Alex Cullen (11%). One in ten (6%) would opt for some other candidate who entered the race, while two in ten (19%) don't know for whom they would vote.

There are very few demographic differences in the data, suggesting that at this point Jim Watson's support is widespread across the city. However, there are a few variations in support:

Head-To-Head

• In a head-to-head race, Jim Watson is running slightly ahead of his average (56%) among middle-aged (59%) residents of Ottawa, and those living in the south end of the city (59%). He also performs slightly better among men (58%) than women (54%).
• In a head-to-head race, Alex Cullen is behind in every demographic studied. However, he performs better than his average (16%) among women (19%), those aged 18 to 34 (23%), and those living in the central core of the city (20%).

Three-Way Race

• In a three-way race involving Larry O'Brien, the incumbent mayor performs considerably better than his average (23%) among men (29%) and worse among women (19%), and much worse among those living in the central core (15%). His support is slightly higher among those living in the east (27%) or the south (26%).
• Jim Watson continues to perform better than his average (41%) among middle-aged (44%) residents of Ottawa, although loses some ground among men (39%) since they are more likely than women to support O'Brien. In this scenario, Watson actually performs slightly better among women (43%) than men (39%), the opposite of the two-way race.
• Alex Cullen, receiving only 11% of the vote in a three-way race, doesn't receive a significant boost in support among any of the demographics studied.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of The Ottawa Citizen from June 22 to 24, 2010. For the survey, a representative randomly-selected sample of 500 adults living in Ottawa was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 4.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult population of Ottawa been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure that the sample's and age and sex composition reflects that of the actual Ottawa population according to Census data. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Mike Colledge
President
Ipsos Reid Public Affairs
(613) 688-8971
[email protected]

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