Poll shows mayoral race is now deadlocked over LRT

Voters evenly split between pro-LRT incumbent Eisenberger and anti-project challenger Sgro

“What it means, because municipal voter turnout is not great, is that it is important for both sides to get out their vote on Monday.” LORNE BOZINOFF President, Forum Research

At least one robocall poll suggests a divisive LRT project has turned Hamilton’s mayoral election race into a statistical dead heat.

An automated telephone survey by Forum Research of 1,556 residents showed 39 per cent support pro-LRT incumbent Fred Eisenberger while 38 per cent back anti-LRT challenger Vito Sgro.

Other respondents either said they will choose another of the 15 mayoral candidates (around 12 per cent) or were undecided (12 per cent).

Respondents — a majority reached by landline — were similarly divided when asked how they felt about the contentious $1-billion light rail line, said Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff. Half said they opposed the project, while 46 per cent were supportive.

And when those residents were specifically informed about the positions of both candidates on LRT and asked to choose between them again, the support split at 43 per cent each.

“It is so close, the numbers are almost identical,” said Bozinoff of the survey, which claims a margin of error of 2.48 per cent, with total sample results considered accurate 19 times out of 20.

“What it means, because municipal voter turnout is not great, is that it is important for both sides to get out their vote on Monday.”

Forum Research was not paid for the survey and plans to release the results publicly Friday, said Bozinoff. The firm periodically conducts polls and offers the results for free to drum up clients.

Bozinoff noted light rail transit was also an issue — but not the top priority — for voters polled in a paid Forum survey conducted for The Spectator during the 2014 election. This time, fully a third of respondents called LRT the top issue that would influence their vote.

By contrast, 17 per cent chose taxes, 15 per cent chose infrastructure/roads and nine per cent chose public safety. “Often, the top issue is taxes,” Bozinoff said. “Clearly, people feel very strongly about this (LRT) issue.”

The majority of respondents who offered an opinion about LRT feel passionately about the project, one way or another.

The results broke down this way:

• 31 per cent strongly against and 19 per cent not in support;

• 30 per cent strongly support and 16 per cent somewhat support;

• Three per cent undecided and one per cent unfamiliar with the project.

The relatively even split doesn’t necessarily apply across gender or age groups, however.

After respondents were informed of candidate positions on LRT, support for Eisenberger skewed toward younger voter and women, while Sgro saw more support from older men.

Some critics question the ability of traditional phone polls to accurately represent younger generations of voters who are increasingly cutting the cord on landlines — or just not answering the phone for surveys.

Bozinoff said a majority of the interactive response surveys went to landlines, rather than cellphones, but he emphasized the poll had a “strong sample size.” Forum tries to weight its results to account for the broader voting population. “I don’t find a lot of difference” between landline and cell-dominated poll results, he said.

High-profile, badly wrong predictions — like many pollsters infamously fooled by Donald Trump’s 2016 win in the U.S. presidential election — are still relatively rare, but we see them in Canada, too.

Forum markets itself as “the most accurate firm” in the business of predicting provincial election results.

But like other pollsters, it has had some screw-ups — like a 30-point Liberal lead attributed to a Brandon, Man., federal Liberal candidate who later lost what turned out to be a tight 2013 byelection to his Tory opponent.

Municipally, Forum accurately called the last Hamilton mayoral race, won by Eisenberger over Brad Clark and Brian McHattie. Forum was also close on the eventual vote percentage for each candidate.