LILLEY: Advance poll surge could spell trouble for Olivia Chow in mayoral race

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More than 220,000 people cast their ballots in advance polls for Toronto’s municipal election. Those are numbers we haven’t seen before. The closest comparison is from 2014, when John Tory defeated Doug Ford and Olivia Chow came in a distant third.

Sadly, Chow won’t be in third place this time and might even win with some help from election workers.

Numbers released by the city on Tuesday morning showed that 222,550 eligible voters cast their ballot over six days of advance voting, including 53,363 voters marking an X on Sunday alone. That compared with 129,745 votes during the 2023 byelection, 115,911 votes in the full 2022 municipal election, 124,299 ballots cast in 2018 and 161,147 advance votes in 2014.

Those votes weren’t evenly split across the city.

A breakdown by pollster David Valentin of Liaison Strategies found that 10.4% of Toronto’s eligible voters overall cast their ballots in advance polls compared to 6.7% in 2023.

Where votes are coming from

Eglinton–Lawrence was the standout with 16.7% of voters casting early ballots, followed by Toronto–St. Paul’s at 15.1%. Both of those wards, each with a significant Jewish population, are likely to favour Brad Bradford, who has stood up to antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, while Olivia Chow has allowed antisemitism to fester and grow.

Toronto–Danforth had the third highest level of advance poll turnout at 14.1%, a result that is likely to favour Chow given that the ward is the area her late husband Jack Layton represented as an MP for years in the House of Commons. Even before moving to federal politics, Layton represented Toronto’s east end while sitting on city council.

The two leading candidates appear to split a number of other areas where voter turnout in advance polls was high. Places like Parkdale–High Park and Beaches–East York are likely to favour Chow, while Etobicoke Centre and Etobicoke–Lakeshore are likely to favour Bradford.

Chow is likely to sweep much of downtown and Bradford much of Etobicoke, so then the race comes down to North York and Scarborough.

The latest Liaison poll has Chow ahead citywide at 51% to Bradford’s 46% among decided and leaning voters. That seems like a slam dunk for Chow until you look at the underlying numbers.

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Numbers tell a different story

“Bradford now leads in Scarborough, 50% to 47%, and has a much larger 59% to 38% advantage in Etobicoke. Chow leads downtown 57% to 39% and in North York 50% to 46%,” Valentin said.

While those numbers favour Bradford, breaking down a city by region leads to a larger margin of error. When it comes to the demographic breakdown, though, the numbers, if accurate, clearly favour Bradford.

“Chow leads 54% to 42% among those aged 18 to 34, while Bradford leads 51% to 46% among those aged 65 and older,” Valentin said.

Bradford is also in the lead among homeowners, while Chow leads with renters. Homeowners and older voters are far more likely to vote than younger voters who are renting.

While Liaison has a five-point gap citywide between Chow and Bradford, Mainstreet Research had the gap at 2.5 points in favour of Chow and Nanos had a 3.5-point gap.

Thumb-on-the-scale question

A few weeks ago, it seemed impossible that Chow could lose this race. Now it seems quite possible that Bradford could win it.

One question that will hang over the advance vote is how much the prompting by election workers to make sure people voted for the right Chow will impact the vote. After breaking the story that voters in University–Rosedale were being given guidance by election workers that they should make sure to vote for the right Chow, several other voters in various parts of the city came forward to say they experienced the same thing during advance voting.

Let’s hope that election workers on Oct. 26 remember their job isn’t to influence voters, but to help them cast a ballot. Anything more than that is putting a thumb on the scale.

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