Leading Toronto: The Race for A New Mayor

Toronto, ONTARIO - Former mayor of the pre-amalgamated City of Toronto, Barbara Hall (44%) holds a convincing lead among decided voters over the other candidates in the race to replace retiring Mayor Mel Lastman, according to the findings of a new poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid for The Globe and Mail, CFTO, and Newstalk 1010 CFRB, released today. Following in a virtual second spot tie are former federal Member of Parliament John Nunziata (15%), former head of Rogers Communications and former chairman of the CFL John Tory (13%), and current City Councillor David Miller (12%). Trailing far behind in the race is former city councillor and budget chief Tom Jakobek (4%). At this stage in the campaign, one in five (20%) Torontonians are undecided who they will support for mayor.

With the Mayoralty race expected to swing into high gear in the next month Barbara Hall's lead may, at this point, be based primarily on her high level of name recognition in the city as opposed to any galvanizing issue which has yet to emerge for voter support. Ms. Hall (86%) leads all the other candidates in name recognition, followed by John Nunziata (71%), Tom Jakobek (62%), John Tory (59%) and finally David Miller (48%).

And knowing the candidate creates impressions that can provide much needed positive momentum, or negative drag. We calculate this momentum by setting aside those holding a neutral view of the candidate they know and then subtracting the negative impressions from the positive impressions to give a momentum score.

In this lead up to the next phase of campaigning, which will pit candidates against each other with more tightly focused campaigning and advertising, Ms. Hall has the most momentum among voters who know the candidate, (net +25; positive 44% - negative 19%) while the least known candidate, Mr. Miller matches her momentum (net +25; positive 34% - negative 9%). Mr. Tory (net +16; positive 31% - negative 15%) and Mr. Nunziata (net +8; positive 30% - negative 22%) also score net positive impressions among those familiar with them. And, while having a high level of name recognition, Tom Jakobek is the only candidate to receive a net negative impression score (net -49; positive 9% - negative 58%) - numbers which indicate from both momentum and a decided voter category that he is effectively out of the race.

So what are the issues that the mayoral candidates will have to discuss to get Torontonians' votes come November 10th? According to the poll results there is no single galvanizing issue that has yet to emerge that would make for a more focused choice for voter support. While the top issue cited by Torontonians that candidates need to discuss to get their vote is housing/affordable housing/homelessness (20%), many other issues follow closely including education (16%), crime/violence (12%), healthcare (12%), taxes (11%), public transportation (8%), government accountability/reducing waste (7%), unemployment (6%), the economy (6%), environmental issues (6%), cleaning up the city/cleanliness (5%), infrastructure (4%), hydro/electricity/power (4%) and transportation issues (4%). A number of other issues were raised, but were not mentioned by at least 4% of respondents.

All this suggests that as the campaigns heat up and voters tune in to platforms and issues there could be some shifts in the numbers leading up to the November vote.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Globe and Mail/CFTO/CFRB poll conducted between August 21st and August 24th, 2003. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 500 adult residents of the City of Toronto. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult population of the City of Toronto been polled. The margin of error will be larger for sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's age/sex/household income composition reflects that of the actual adult population of the City of Toronto according to the 2001 Census data.

Barbara Hall (44%), former mayor of the pre-amalgamated City of Toronto, holds a convincing lead among decided voters over the other candidates to replace retiring Mayor Mel Lastman at this point in the campaign. Following in second spot in a virtual tie are former federal Member of Parliament John Nunziata (15%), former head of Rogers Communications and former chairman of the CFL John Tory (13%), and current City Councillor, David Miller (12%). Trailing far behind in the race is former city councillor and budget chief Tom Jakobek (4%). It should be noted that at this stage in the campaign, one in five (20%) Torontonians are undecided in their support.

• Barbara Hall is the top choice among all socio-demographic groups, with stronger support coming from those born outside of Canada (52% versus 38% of those born in Canada), those in lower income households (51% versus 39% in upper income households), among renters (49% versus 39% of owners) and among those 54 years of age and younger (48% versus 37% of those 55+).
• John Nunziata's support is highest among middle aged adults (19% versus 9% of young adults) and those without a university degree (20% versus 9% of university graduates.)
• John Tory's support is strongest among those 55 years of age and older (21% versus 8% of young adults), those with household incomes of $60,000 or more (21% versus 8% of those with households incomes of less than $30,000) and homeowners (20% versus 7% of renters).
• David Miller's support is strongest among middle aged adults (19% versus 9% of young adults), and those with post-secondary education/some university/university graduates (15% versus 5% of those with a high school or less education).
• Homeowners (6%) are more likely to support Tom Jakobek than are renters (1%).
• Decided young adult voters (23%) are more likely to indicate that they will support a candidate other than the five listed. This compares to the 7% of those 35 and older who indicate they will support a candidate other than the candidates mentioned.
• Middle-aged voters (25%) are the most likely to be undecided, followed by young adult voters (20%), and older (16%) voters.

With no galvanizing issue yet to emerge to drive the ultimate "ballot box" decision Barbara Hall's lead may be primarily because of her high level of name recognition in the city. Ms. Hall (86%) leads all the other candidates in name recognition, followed by John Nunziata (71%), Tom Jakobek (62%), John Tory (59%) and finally David Miller (48%).

• Older voters are more likely to be familiar with each of the candidates, while young adults are the least likely.
• With the exception of Barbara Hall, those in upper income households are more likely to be familiar with each of the candidates than those in middle or lower income households. Torontonians in all income groups have an equal level of familiarity with Barbara Hall.
• Homeowners are more likely to be familiar with the candidates than are renters.
• Longer-term residents are, in general, more likely to be familiar with each of the candidates than newcomers to the city.

However, net "momentum" (positive impression - negative impression) among those who are familiar with the candidates provides some interesting contrasts. While Ms. Hall (net momentum +25; positive 44% - negative 19%) tops the list in momentum, the least known candidate, Mr. Miller matches her momentum score (net momentum +25; positive 34% - negative 9%). Mr. Tory (net momentum +16; positive 31% - negative 15%) and Mr. Nunziata (net momentum +8; positive 30% - negative 22%) also score net positive momentum scores among those familiar with them. And, while having a high level of name recognition, Tom Jakobek is the only candidate to receive a net negative momentum score (net momentum -49; positive 9% - negative 58%). With these negative momentum numbers and low decided vote accumulated to day, it is safe to say that Mr. Jakobek's candidacy for Mayor is likely finished.

• Of those who know her, Ms. Hall receives her highest net momentum ratings from renters (net +30), and those aged 18 to 54 (net +29), while her lowest net momentums are receive from homeowners (net +19), middle income households (net +19), those with a post-secondary education/some university (net +16) and older Torontonians (net +14).
• Mr. Miller's highest net momentum among those who know him are received from young adult voters (net +39), upper income households (net +35), university graduates (net +34), those with a post-secondary education /some university (net +30) and renters (net +30). He receives his lowest net momentum ratings from voters with a high school or less education (net +6).
• Mr. Tory receives his highest net momentum among those who know him from homeowners (net + 25), middle aged voters (net +23), and those in upper income households (net +23), while his lowest net momentum scores are recorded among young adults (net +7) and renters (net 0).
• Mr. Nunziata receives his highest net momentum score among those who know him from those with a high school or less education (net +24) and middle aged voters (net +16), while his lowest net score is recorded among university graduates (net -3) and young adult voters (net -4).
• Mr. Jakobek receives negative net momentum impression score from all groups. His best impression score is found among young adult voters (net -39), while his lowest score is recorded among upper income households (net -61), older voters (net -60) and university graduates (net -58).

So what are the issues that the mayoral candidates will have to discuss to get Torontonians votes come November 10th? According to the poll results, no single issue appears to be galvanizing the city. The top issue cited by Torontians that candidates need to discuss to get their vote is housing/affordable housing/homelessness (20%), followed by education (16%), crime/violence (12%), healthcare (12%), taxes (11%), public transportation (8%), government accountability/reducing waste (7%), unemployment (6%), the economy (6%), environmental issues (6%), cleaning up the city/cleanliness (5%), infrastructure (4%), hydro/electricity/power (4%) and transportation issues (4%). A number of other issues were raised, but were not mentioned by at least 4% of respondents. All of this is likely to shift over the next couple of months as candidates move into high gear and try to create defining and convincing arguments as to why they should be mayor.

• Women are more likely than are men to cite housing/affordable housing/homelessness (25% versus 14% of men) and education (22% versus 9% of men) as issues that mayoral candidates need to focus on to get their vote. Men are more likely than are women to want mayoral candidates to discuss issues such as taxes (15% versus 7% of women) and economic issues (10% versus 3% of women).
• Young adults voters (24%) are more likely to want candidates to discuss issues around education than are their older counterparts (8%). Young adults (8%) and middle aged (8%) voters are more likely to want candidates to discuss jobs and unemployment than older voters (2%). Meanwhile, older voters (10% versus 0% of young adults) are more likely to mention infrastructure as an issue that they want candidates to discuss in order to earn their vote.
• Voters in lower income households (25%) are more likely than those in upper income households (9%) to say that education is the topic that would earn their vote. Those in upper income households (15%) are more likely than those in the lowest income households (4%) to cite public transportation as an issue that could earn their vote if discussed by mayoral candidates.
• Renters (23% versus 9% of owners) are more likely to say education would be a topic that could earn their support, while owners (16% versus 5% of renters) are more likely to say that taxes would be the topic. In the same vein, government accountability/reducing waste in government is also more likely to be mentioned by homeowners (10%) than by renters (3%).

To view the media release and detailed tables, please open the attached PDF files.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900