Ford’s popular support is still commanding

After so many missteps, Doug Ford should be done like dinner.

Yet the premier hosted the biggest fundraising dinner in Canadian political history this month. The tally? A record $6 million from more than 4,000 donors.

That’s not the only vote of confidence on the menu: Ford’s Tories are as dominant as ever in the polls, reopening a massive lead over a leaderless and rudderless opposition.

How to explain the inexplicable and unpredictable puzzle of Ontario politics? Not so simple.

Many Ontarians will be shocked by the latest public opinion poll from Abacus Data showing the governing Progressive Conservatives far in front with the support of 41 per cent of eligible voters in Ontario.

Remarkably, that’s about the same support the Tories garnered in the June 2 provincial vote. Despite a steady stream of bad news for Ford in the nine months since he won re-election handily, he is right back where he started — sitting pretty.

The Tories are far out in front of the second-place Liberals, at 28 per cent, now searching for a new leader to replace the departed Steven Del Duca. The Official Opposition NDP has fallen from second spot to third with a mere 22 per cent, just weeks after Marit Stiles took the helm.

The latest poll is a reminder of the reality that Ford’s re-election wasn’t a fluke, nor a failure of democracy, nor the fault of the media.

More to the point, the premier’s press coverage since he won re-election has been consistently and uniformly negative. Yet his polling numbers have never been higher.

Beyond last week’s unprecedented fundraising feast, the premier is making a meal of Ontario politics: Ford wrong-footed CUPE workers who were walking the picket line last fall, trampling on their Charter rights; he stubbed his toe in court this week after suspending Charter rights in the last election campaign by imposing unconstitutional limits on outside advertising by unions and others; he trampled on the Greenbelt after publicly pledging to keep his hands off it; and he played footsie with his developer friends at the stag-anddoe party that sparked unfriendly headlines about a perceived conflict of interest.

Despite that dismal track record, Ford’s Tories have increased their vote share by three percentage points since the last Abacus poll in November, while the NDP has gone down by four points. Notwithstanding his controversial invocation of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, the percentage of voters with a “positive” impression of the premier has increased by five percentage points since the last election, while his “negative” rating decreased by two points.

While it’s easy to demonize Ford personally — often deservedly — it doesn’t explain his resiliency and accessibility. The high roller who hobnobs with hotshots and the hoi polloi has mastered the art of the common touch.

A recurring canard, since the last democratic vote in Ontario, is that the election didn’t really count because it wasn’t truly representative of reality. Admittedly, the depressingly low voter turnout of 43 per cent was nothing to celebrate, but also nothing to denigrate.

There was no one to blame for that low turnout other than the politicians and the people. The major parties failed to inspire the electorate, and voters lacked the initiative to do their electoral duty.

But let’s not pretend that the verdict was anything other than a democratic sounding, or that it wasn’t broadly representative of which party was the top choice of voters. In fact, an Abacus poll conducted on the eve of last June’s vote showed the Tories at 40 per cent, the Liberals at 27 and the NDP at 22.

Why is Ford still riding high in the polls? One clue can be found in the competition: 38 per cent of Ontarians are unsure about the NDP’s Stiles; about 44 per cent are unsure about the various undeclared aspirants for the Liberal leadership. None of this is to suggest Ford can coast to the next election. Just that the last one wasn’t a fluke.