Another credible pollster – Forum Research – decided to take a poll specifically in Toronto, where conservative mayor Rob Ford and federal Conservatives had major breakthroughs of seats for varying reasons. The result isn’t the same at the moment for the provincial PC’s:
The party has slipped to third place in the city, dropping 10 percentage points since June 1 to 24 per cent support. The Liberals, who hold 19 of 23 seats in Toronto, is at 39 per cent, up from 34 per cent three months ago. The NDP, which has four seats here, has leapfrogged the Tories and is at 30 per cent up from 26 per cent.
Take note – this is a poll of a little over a 1000 Torontonians; a significant sample size in a national poll, much less for just a city. The reasoning behind the Tory plunge? THe pollster suspects as others have it was the PC’s attempted wedge attack on new Canadians:
The results may reflect reaction to Tory Leader Tim Hudak’s attacks on a Liberal employment program for new Canadians as “affirmative action for foreign workers,” suggested Forum president Lorne Bozinoff.“I think someone has made a real screw-up,” he said. “Right now, the Tories aren’t going to win any seats in the 416 with these kind of numbers.”
I’ll be shocked if the Conservatives and Hudak continue to go after this, seeing the poll reaction to them. Of course, walking into London and telling everyone there he’d make sure 200 people didn’t get promised jobs from the Green Energy projects he’d kill isn’t going to help him either. Throw in 300 jobs at Tillsonburg and more at Windsor while you’re at it.
Another factor in the poll results is undoubtedly the similarities people detect between the rhetoric of Tim Hudak (cutting out waste, protecting services AND lowering taxes) and Mayor Rob Ford, who made the same promises and is now preparing to gut city services. One can only hope that the next move will be for the big fella to endorse Tim as his choice for next Premier of Ontario!
http://abacusdata.ca/2011/09/13/ontario-election-tories-lead-by-9-among-decided-voters-but-ndp-and-liberals-have-the-most-room-to-grow/
Tories in lead in all of Ontario, latest poll.
Right.. with a poll methodology that asked people to rank preference from 1-10 – something no other pollster has done before, and an online forum poll to boot.. and it was done for SunMedia.. which is 2nd to none in hostility for Mcguinty. It’s also run by David Coletto, who wrote his thesis with former Harper adviser Tom Flanagan at the Univ of Calgary.
When Abacus does a poll with a proven track record (ie it telephones people) and gets the same results.. I’ll pay attention more – maybe.