Latest online poll puts Smith 17 points behind just days before vote

An online poll released Friday gives Naheed Nenshi a 17 point lead over rival Bill Smith.

That poll stands in stark contrast to a telephone poll conducted by Mainstreet Research for Postmedia on Tuesday and Wednesday, which gave Smith an 11 point lead over Nenshi.

The online poll was conducted by Forum Research for the academic group the Canadian Municipal Election Study, which is conducting a comparative study of eight municipal elections across Canada in 2017-18.

Eight hundred and forty three people were polled for the study between Sept. 28 and Oct. 12. They were initially recruited by telephone through random digit dialing, and then the actual survey was conducted online.

Michael McGregor, assistant professor of political science at Ryerson University in Toronto and the lead researcher for the project, said he thinks the methodology is sound.

“One thing that gives me some confidence in this poll is we’re seeing trends that you would expect: We know that in general, leftwing candidates tend to do better among women. One Mainstreet poll found Smith was doing better among women. That’s very shocking, I won’t say red flag, but that’s very shocking to us.”

McGregor’s poll found Nenshi had 49.8 per cent support overall, compared to Smith’s 33 per cent and city councillor Andre Chabot’s 4.1 per cent. Twelve-and-a-half per cent of voters said they either didn’t know who they were going to vote for, or had not decided.

Nenshi leads among men, women and in every age group except for those 65 and over, where Smith had 47.1 per cent compared to Nenshi’s 39.3 per cent.

The overall results are considered accurate plus or minus 3.37 per cent, 19 times out of 20, according to Forum.

The Canadian Municipal Election Study will conduct polls in Montreal and Quebec City in the run up to their Nov. 5 elections.

In 2018, they have surveys planned for Toronto, Mississauga, London, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

“We’re doing big surveys before and after each of these elections. Who are you going to vote for and who won’t you vote for? A big part of research of this nature when you’re government funded is to disseminate that information as widely as possible,” said McGregor.

The full list of questions asked in the Canadian Municipal Election Study has not been made public.