51% back re-election of mayor, council

Iverson way ahead in online poll

A smidgen over 50 per cent of Edmontonians believe the current council and mayor deserve to be re-elected in the 2017 municipal election on Oct. 16, a new online poll released Wednesday found.

Conducted by research firm Leger, the poll surveyed 500 city residents aged 18 or older between Sept. 28 and Oct. 1. A margin of error was not reported because it is a non-random internet survey.

Asked if the current mayor and council “deserve to be re-elected,” 51 per cent of respondents said “Yes” while 30 per cent said “No.” Another 20 per cent said they didn’t know.

As for who should lead the city over the next four years, 45 per cent of respondents said that if an election was held today, Don Iveson would get their vote for mayor, with Don Koziak (seven per cent) and Carla Frost (three per cent) rounding out the top three candidates.

Those numbers are tempered by the fact 30 per cent said they were undecided about who they would vote for.

The poll also found that reducing the tax burden on Edmontonians (34 per cent), improving social issues like poverty and homelessness (24 per cent) and improving road conditions in the city (23 per cent) were the top three issues that the next mayor and council should focus on, the poll found.

Leger said that “had the data been collected using a probability sample, the margin of error … would be +/- 4.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.”