Poll finds Doug Ford in statistical tie in Toronto mayoral race; is the end nigh?

In a proclamation that somewhat defied popular expectation, a new poll on the Toronto mayor’s race suggests latecomer Doug Ford has caught up to the frontrunner and is now in a statistical tie for the lead. In short, a public survey suggests that Rob Ford’s louder brother is just as likely as some, and more likely than others, of being the next mayor of Toronto.

A Forum Research poll released on Tuesday placed Ford, who entered the race when his brother withdrew his candidacy for health reasons, is now only two percentage points behind John Tory.

The Forum poll found that 39 per cent of respondents say they will vote for Tory, while 37 per cent say they will vote for Ford. Olivia Chow eked out 22 per cent support in the latest poll.

The results were shocking for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Ford’s behaviour since replacing his controversial brother on the ballot.

For one, a Monday poll from a separate firm suggested that Tory’s lead was actually widening. A Mainstreet Technologies poll suggested that Tory held 42 per cent support, with Ford sitting at 28 per cent and Olivia Chow trailing with 19 per cent.

Notably, a previous Mainstreet Technologies poll drew headlines at the time for being the most bullish on Ford’s chances. A Sept. 28 poll suggested Ford was seven percentage points behind Tory, who then had 37 per cent support. Monday’s Mainstreet poll suggested that lead had extended to 14 percentage points, with the firm’s president suggesting Ford “may have hit his ceiling.”

But key to the incredulity of Tuesday’s Forum poll was the almost illogical results shift from the previous poll released just a week earlier, which found that Tory and Ford were a full 10 points apart. Tuesday’s poll report said the findings sat in “stark contrast” with one another.

"This is a shocking upset indeed. Doug had a fairly good week last week, but his partisans clearly think he had a great week. He has neatly filched 4 points off John Tory and added them to his vote share," Forum Research President Dr. Lorne Bozinoff said in a statement.

The released results caused a flurry of second-guessing online, with many political watchers pointing to previous questions about Forum Research’s accuracy as a reason to take the poll in stride.

Forum, after all, predicted a coin flip between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives in an Ontario provincial election earlier this year. The result wasn’t close, gifting the Liberals an even stronger mandate with the PCs stumbling so badly that their leader resigned.

A Forum Research poll during last year’s federal by-election also found that the Liberal candidate held a 29-point lead in the Conservative-dominated riding of Brandon-Souris.

In the end, the Conservatives held the riding handily and Bozinoff conceded to the Canadian Press that the poll results “were off in Brandon”.

Digging into the results of the recent Forum poll unveils an interesting point of order. Tory’s margin of voter support is comfortably above Ford’s in almost every age category – 15 points above Ford’s in voters between 35 and 44 and as much as 28 points above in voters 65 and over.

But among the smaller number of survey participants who said they were between the ages of 18 and 34, Ford carried a 49 per cent to 24 per cent advantage.

In the previous Forum poll, conducted Sept. 29, Ford led a lead over Tory in that age group but not to the same extreme (38 per cent to 31 per cent).

Forum polls are conducted through an interactive voice response telephone survey. They consist of a variable number (usually around 1,000) of randomly selected voters, and the results are statistically weighted by age, region of the city and other variables. Is it possible this spike in young Ford voters, then statistically weighted, had a hand in bumping him into a statistical tie? And if so, is it similarly indicative of how people will vote on October 27?

There’s a point highlighted in Forum Research’s methodology document worth considering:

The debate over Forum’s history and methodology is somewhat beside the point. Toronto-area news agencies have been pointing to Forum Research poll results as a scoreboard for the entire mayoral campaign. And as savvy politicians frequently point out, the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day. All the rest are simply attempts to fill the public’s desire to have a scorecard for something that isn’t necessarily capable of being scored.

Campaigns are run with the express and single purpose of convincing the most people that it’s worth getting off the couch and voting for one specific person on a single specific day at an appointed point in the near future.

Campaigns use internal polls to determine how successful their campaign strategy has been at doing that. External polls – those polls swarmed over by media and the public alike – are attempts to quantify the same from the outside.

Campaign polls are not a scoreboard, though it is the closest thing the public has right up to the point the votes are cast. At best, they are (as Forum puts it) an opinion at one point in time captured and displayed.

Does Tuesday’s poll result mean it is going to be a dead heat between Ford and Tory on Election Day? Not necessarily; it perhaps more likely will indicate to Ford supporters that they are not out the race and indicate to Tory supporters, as well as undecided voters and those strategically voting to keep Ford from winning that the race isn’t over.

The question will be, how will those teams respond to a seeing a tie on the scoreboard? Which group will, to mix sports metaphors, give 110 per cent right up to the final buzzer?