New poll shows much tighter Ottawa mayoral race between Sutcliffe and Leiper

A new poll shows incumbent Mark Sutcliffe’s once-comfortable lead has narrowed to single digits over three-term councillor Jeff Leiper with less than a week to go in Ottawa’s mayoral race.

Quorus Consulting Group published its poll on Oct. 19 showing that 28 per cent of respondents had already voted or would vote for Sutcliffe, while 24 per cent chose Leiper. Another seven per cent said they would vote for Neil Saravanamuttoo, and four per cent chose Alex Lawson.

Four per cent of respondents opted for one of the other 10 candidates running in this year’s mayoral race. One-third of respondents either said they would not vote, had not decided or preferred not to say.

Without those 33 per cent of undecided voters, Sutcliffe led with 42 per cent, Leiper was at 35 per cent, Saravanamuttoo was at 10 per cent and Lawson was at seven per cent.

Quorus conducted the survey of 807 Ottawa residents from Oct. 8 to 15. Quorus also conducted a survey in June of 403 residents that showed a dramatically different race, with Sutcliffe at 54 per cent and Leiper at 25 per cent.

The new poll shows Sutcliffe with a seven-point lead over Leiper, “which is comfortable enough to suggest victory, but represents a remarkable reduction in a 29 per cent lead we measured in June,” Quorus said in a release.

Sutcliffe enjoys a “healthy” lead among those age 55 and older and among homeowners, which Quorus identified as two important segments of the electorate who had higher tendencies to vote in municipal elections.

Leiper held a “technical lead” among the 10 per cent of respondents who said they had already voted and the 59 per cent who said they definitely would cast ballots, but Quorus said there were “reasons to be skeptical” of that result.

“For one thing, turnout for municipal elections is rarely (if ever) as high as the 69 per cent this implies,” Quorus said. “In addition, since Leiper leads among those under 55 and those who rent — and both of these segments are historically less inclined to turnout — that makes the Leiper lead among this group of self-described certain voters seem to be an unreliable measure.”

Voter turnout was at 43.8 per cent in 2022, when Sutcliffe was elected to his first term, 42.5 per cent in 2018 and about 40 per cent in 2014.

This year’s early-voter turnout represented an 8.9 per cent increase, however, over the advance-voting period in 2022.

There were 86,592 votes cast over five advance voting days from Oct. 1 to 4 and on Oct. 16. In 2022, there were 79,491 early ballots cast over six days of advance voting.

The latest Quorus poll depicts a much tighter race than polls released by the Sutcliffe and Lawson campaigns in the final weeks before the Oct. 26 election day.

Sutcliffe’s team released an internal poll from Abacus Data showing Saravanamuttoo had narrowly overtaken Leiper for second place among likely voters.

Lawson’s team responded by releasing a poll of their own on the weekend, conducted by Mainstreet Research, showing Sutcliffe with a much narrower lead over Leiper, with Lawson in third and Saravanamuttoo in fourth.

Quorus conducted its poll by randomly selecting 807 members of Leger’s opt-in panel of Ottawa residents, 18 years of age and older, who completed an online survey between Oct. 8 and 15.

A margin of error could not be calculated due to the use of a non-probability sample, Quorus said, as respondents were selected only from among those who had registered to participate in online surveys through a panel.

Take control of your search results. Make the Ottawa Citizen a preferred source on Google and see verified local reporting first.