‘CUSP OF CHANGE?’ Advance polling in Toronto way up
· Toronto Sun
See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source
The City of Toronto says advance voting turnout was way up for 2026’s municipal election, almost double what the city saw in 2018, 2022 and 2023.
Visit aportal.club for more information.
From last Tuesday to Thanksgiving Sunday, 222,550 Torontonians cast a ballot . That’s up from 129,745 advance ballots in the 2023 byelection that saw Olivia Chow become mayor. It’s also much higher than the last two regular municipal elections, with 115,911 votes in 2022 and 124,299 in 2018.
Whether or not the big early turnout is good or bad for Chow won’t be known until all the ballots are counted on Oct. 26.
On Tuesday morning, the campaign of her rival Brad Bradford was counting it as a sign that victory is in reach.
“You can feel it at the doors. People aren’t asking me whether this city needs to change anymore. They’re asking me how fast we can do it,” Bradford said in a press release.
“We’re on the cusp of change. Change is within our grasp, and to change the city, we need to change the mayor.”
However, in its own press release Tuesday, Chow’s re-election campaign framed it as a “choice between moving forward, or going backwards to the days of cuts.”
The statement said the record high turnout “shows the Chow ground game at work.” An email sent to Chow campaign supporters on Tuesday morning, meanwhile, said volunteers made more than 100,000 phone calls to Toronto voters over the long weekend, “pushing them to the polls.”
However, a new analysis from polling firm Liaison Strategies suggests the early momentum might not be in Chow’s political stronghold, but suburban areas that may favour Bradford.
‘Voters to persuade’
Downtown has a little more than a third of Toronto’s voters, but it made up 40% of the total advance vote. While that might seem to favour Chow, Liaison found the downtown area made up only a slightly larger share of the advance turnout in 2023.
Advance polling in North York is up, from a 24.9% share to 27.8%, while Scarborough’s share fell from 21.2% to 19.1%. Etobicoke’s share was unchanged.
Eglinton-Lawrence led all wards in early turnout with about 15,000, or 16.7% of its total electorate, Liaison found.
The other wards in the top five for early turnout – Toronto-St. Paul’s, Toronto-Danforth, Parkdale-High Park and Beaches-East York – are all considered downtown wards by Liaison. However, it’s a change election in all except Toronto-St. Paul’s, as the three incumbents in those wards aren’t seeking re-election.
Liaison also warned that in some downtown wards, population growth may be skewing the numbers. While Spadina-Fort York saw about 10,000 advance votes, up 67% from 2023, that’s just 8.1% of its total voters – well below the citywide rate of 10.4%.
“A fast-growing ward can produce a very impressive increase in ballots without becoming a particularly high-participation ward,” David Valentin, principal at Liaison, wrote in his analysis.
Chow’s statement, however, pointed out that Liaison published a survey on Tuesday that put her five points above Bradford.
Among decided and leading voters, 51% indicated they’d choose Chow while 46% were for Bradford.
Valentin found that Bradford’s support is running “ahead of his favourable rating.” While 37% have a positive view of him, 40% do not. He’s still introducing himself to people, with 42% of undecided voters unfamiliar with him and 18% unsure how they feel.
“Chow has an opportunity with those voters too,” Valentin added, as Toronto’s uncommitted “are not overwhelmingly hostile to the mayor…
“There are still voters to persuade. Neither campaign should read this result as a settled outcome.”
Liaison’s sample of 1,000 Toronto residents was done Oct. 8 and 9 through automated phone calls. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.