2022 Ontario election will be close, poll says

The 2022 Ontario election is shaping up to be a close race between the Conservatives and the Liberals, according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll.

While more voters had a favourable impression of the Ontario Premier and Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford (40 per cent) than Liberal Leader Stephen Del Duca (23 per cent), only 34 per cent of respondents said they were planning to vote for the PC party, compared to 31 per cent for the Liberals.

That gap has been narrowing over the past eight months, said Andrew Enns, executive vice-president at Leger. In March 2021, a Leger poll had the Conservatives at 38 per cent — a tenpoint lead over the NDP. The Liberals were in third place with 23 per cent.

“The Liberals are in a much-improved situation and will be looking to build and improve upon that as we move closer to election time,” Enns said. “It'll be a close race.”

He expects the Conservatives won't be thrilled with how far their support has fallen since the 2018 election, when they won with 40.5 per cent of the vote. The NDP got 33.6 per cent of votes in the last election, while the Liberals fell from ruling party to third place with just 19.6 per cent.

The online poll surveyed 1,001 Ontarians aged 18 and over through Leger's online panel between Nov. 12 and 14. Since there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent on a comparable probability survey of this size, the race could be even tighter, Enns said.

“It seems that things are in a bit of a holding pattern for voters. The Conservatives still have a small lead. But when you take into account the potential margin of error for a poll of this size, you're looking at a very close race between the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals,” Enns said.

The Liberals have the most support in the metro Toronto area (43 per cent) compared to 28 per cent for the PCs. But the Conservatives have 46 per cent support in the Greater Toronto Area, compared to 25 per cent for the Liberals.

The poll found that 39 per cent of people had a favourable impression of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, but that only translated to 26 per cent of the vote, which is down from 28 per cent in March 2021.

“I would suspect that there will be some hard questions of why that might be and how they will try to get back up to the level that they were at in 2018,” Enns said.

For all three major leaders, more voters had an unfavourable impression of them than favourable. For

THIS POLL IS A GOOD SIGNAL TO THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVES THAT THEY HAVE SOME WORK TO DO.

Ford, 54 per cent of voters had an unfavourable impression of him, while for Horwath it was 41 per cent and Del Duca 39 per cent.

But there's still room for each party to gain votes. While 46 per cent of respondents said their vote is final, 48 per cent said they may change their mind.

“This poll is a good signal to the Progressive Conservatives that they have some work to do. At this stage in the game, they have five or six months to make those changes,” Enns said.

“Looking hard at their last budget that will come down in the late winter or spring of next year will be a vehicle for them to lay out their plans for the next four years of Ontario to the voters and drive up their ballot situation.”