Toronto Megacity Vote Turns into Two Man Race With Miller in Lead for Mayor's Chair

Toronto, ONTARIO - With just seven days left to go in the campaign and a narrowing of the field to two prime candidates, Toronto voters will be faced with a clear choice for mayor as the top candidates attempt to focus their campaigns in the stretch run. Right now, barring a major setback, city councillor David Miller (37%, up 25 points since August) appears to be headed towards a bigger office at City Hall - that of Mayor, according to a new Ipsos-Reid/CFTO/CFRB/Globe and Mail poll released tonight.

Former Rogers Communications executive, John Tory (31%, up 18 points) trails but remains competitive in a solid second spot among decided voters. Support for the initial frontrunner, former mayor Barbara Hall (19%) has tumbled 25 points since August. John Nunziata (6%, down 9 points) and Tom Jakobek (2%, down 2 points) remain far out of the race among decided voters. Five percent indicate they will support candidates other then the top five. And, currently, one in five (22%) Toronto voters say they are undecided (4%) or will not support any candidate (18%) in the upcoming mayoralty election.

Municipal elections, in many instances, are decided by actual voter turnout as opposed to just decided voter intent. Half (54%) of Toronto voters say they are absolutely certain that they will go out and vote on election day, while a further 18% say they are very likely to vote and nine percent say they are somewhat likely to cast a ballot on election day. Seventeen percent say they are not very or not at all likely to vote on November 10th.

Among those decided voters who say they are `absolutely certain' to go out and vote in the election, David Miller holds the support of 42%, compared to 33% for John Tory, 14% for Barbara Hall, 7% for John Nunziata and 1% for Tom Jakobek.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/CFTO/CFRB/Globe and Mail poll conducted between October 31st and November 2nd, 2003. The telephone survey is based on a randomly selected sample of 700 adult Torontonians. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 3.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Toronto population been polled. The margin of error will be larger 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 Toronto population according to the 2001 Census data.

Among decided voters, Toronto city councillor David Miller (37%) leads all other candidates. His level of support has jumped 25 points since our initial poll conducted in mid-August.

• Among age groups Mr. Miller leads all other candidates among young adults (35%) and middle-aged (41%) voters, while he is in a virtual tie with John Tory among older Torontonians (Tory 37%, Miller 36%).

• Mr. Miller leads all candidates among women (37%). Meanwhile among men (36%), Mr. Miller is in a virtual tie with Mr. Tory (33%).

• Support for David Miller is significantly higher among university graduates (45%) than among those with a post-secondary education/some university (30%), or a high school education or less (26%). In fact, while Mr. Miller is the top choice among university graduates, while he is tied with Mr. Tory among those with a post-secondary education/some university (Tory 31%, Miller 30%) and trails Mr. Tory among those with a high school education or less (Tory 33%, Miller 26%).

• Mr. Miller leads among Torontonians from upper income households (Miller 43%, Tory 34%) and lower income households (Miller 36%, Hall 24%), but is tied with Mr. Tory among those from middle income households (Tory 31%, Miller 30%).

• Mr. Miller (34%) leads his rivals among renters, but is in a virtual tie with Mr. Tory among homeowners (Miller 39%, Tory 36%).

Former Rogers Communications executive, John Tory (31%, up 18 points) currently sits in solid second spot among decided voters.

• As mentioned above, Mr. Tory (37%) is tied with Mr. Miller (36%) among older voters, but trails among middle aged (Miller 41%, Tory 30%) and young adult (Miller 35%, Hall 27%, Tory 24%) voters.

• Both men (33%) and women (29%) are equally likely to vote for John Tory.

• There is no statistical difference regarding support for Mr. Tory across education groupings (high school or less 33%, post-secondary/some university 31%, university graduates 30%). However, as noted above, Mr. Tory and Mr. Miller are virtually tied among those with a post-secondary education/some university (Tory 31%, Miller 30%).

• Torontonians from upper income households (34%) are significantly more likely to vote for Mr. Tory than are those from lower income households (20%). However, amongst both groups, Mr. Tory trails Mr. Miller in support. The gap between the two front-runners is tighter among those from middle-income households (Miller 32%, Tory 30%).

• While, Mr. Tory trails Mr. Miller among renters (Miller 34%, Tory 23%), the two are in a virtual tie among homeowners (Miller 39%, Tory 36%).

Since our first sounding in mid-August, support for the initial frontrunner, former mayor Barbara Hall (19%) has tumbled 25 points.

• Barbara Hall's support is stronger among young adult (27%) voters than among middle aged (15%) or older (16%) voters. In fact, Ms. Hall is in a virtual tie for second place with Mr. Tory among young adult voters (Hall 27%, Tory 24%).

• There is no significant difference between women (20%) and men (18%) regarding support for Ms. Hall.

• Torontonians from lower (24%) and middle (23%) income households are significantly more likely to support Barbara Hall than are those in upper income households (14%).

• Ms. Hall also receives a significantly higher level of support among renters (23%) than among homeowners (16%).

John Nunziata receives support from one in twenty (6%) decided voters. This represents a decline of 9 points since our mid-August poll.

• Torontonians with a high school education or less (12%) are significantly more likely to support Mr. Nunziata than are those with a university degree (4%).

• There are no significant differences in support for Mr. Nunziata between age, gender, household income groups or between homeowners and renters.

Tom Jakobek (2%, down 2 points) continues to remain far out of the race among decided voters.

• There are no significant differences between age, gender, education, or household income groups regarding support for Mr. Jakobek or between homeowners and renters.

Five percent indicate they will support candidates other then the top five.

• Renters (10%) are more likely than homeowners (2%) to indicate they plan on supporting candidates other than the top five.

Half (54%) of voters say they are absolutely certain that they will go out and vote on election day, while a further 18% say they are very likely to vote and nine percent say they are somewhat likely to cast a ballot on election day. Seventeen percent say they are not very or not at all likely to vote on November 10th.

• Older (71%) voters are significantly more likely to be absolutely certain they will go out an vote on November 10th than are their middle aged (59%) and young adult (32%) counterparts.

• University graduates (58%) are more likely than are those with a high school education or less (52%) or a post-secondary education/some university (47%) to say they are absolutely certain to go and vote.

• Torontonians from upper income households (61%) are significantly more likely than are those in middle (50%) or lower (46%) income households to be absolutely certain they will vote in the election.

• Homeowners (64%) are significantly more likely than are renters (40%) to be absolutely certain they will vote on November 10th.

Please open the attached PDF files to view the release and detailed tables.

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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