Surging Ford closing in on Smitherman in mayoral race
16 April 2010 05:17
Rob Ford“Rob Ford has reshuffled the deck,” mostly at the expense of a stalled Rocco Rossi, said Jodi Shanoff, senior vice-president of Angus Reid Public Opinion.
The online poll of 413 Torontonians, conducted between last Thursday and Monday, puts Smitherman at 34 per cent support, followed by Ford at 27 per cent. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Despite the startling surge by Ford — best known for spending his own money on his council office budget and for embarrassing public outbursts — Shanoff cautioned that a full 51 per cent of respondents are undecided.
With more than six months until the election, “the field is still open.”
Ford, who registered as a candidate March 25 and drew 1,600 people to a campaign launch party the next night, has filled a vacuum in the race on the right side of the political spectrum, Shanoff said, while Smitherman and Rossi duke it out on the centre-right.
The biggest disappointment in the numbers is for Rossi, a former executive and Liberal party fundraiser who bounded from obscurity with a big speech and lots of policy in late January. His 13 per cent support is down by two points from mid-January.
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