Doug Ford’s path to victory — at city hall in 2022
Much to the possible chagrin of my colleague Edward Keenan, who says it’s way too early for such predictions, I predict Doug Ford will lose the 2018 Toronto mayoral race.
I also predict incumbent mayor John Tory will score an easy victory over Ford and all other challengers in the election, set for Oct. 22, 2018.
And I will go even further and predict Ford will win a surprisingly large number of votes in 2018, keeping Ford Nation alive and angry and — most importantly — setting the stage for a possible Ford victory in the 2022 mayoral contest.
Like it or not, while the official campaign won’t start until May, the race is already in full swing.
At this stage, though, Ford’s path to victory in 2018 seems impossible.
He’s well behind Tory in early polls, has done nothing since the 2014 mayoral race to broaden his base of support, has no coherent vision on how to build and improve the city other than a simplistic pledge to cut taxes, and continues to play a hardball, bullying style of politics that voters rejected in 2014.
In the 2014 mayoral contest, Ford, who announced last week he will run again for mayor, captured 33.7 per cent of the votes. Tory received 40.3 per cent and former NDP MP Olivia Chow got 23.2 per cent.
But two polls conducted in the past week indicate Ford remains stuck right where he was on election night in 2014. A Forum Poll showed Tory supported by 64 per cent of decided and leaning vot- ers, with Ford backed by 36 per cent. A Mainstream/Postmedia survey indicated Tory is backed by 66 per cent of voters and Ford by 34 per cent in a head-tohead contest.
In addition, polls show more than half of Toronto voters believe Tory has done a good job as mayor, bringing stability and decorum to the job after the crazy four-year term of Rob Ford.
Currently, the coming election is shaping up as just a two-way race. Over the past summer, a number of other potential serious candidates looked at entering the race, but veteran city hall observers believe no one else of any significant stature will actually come forward.
“Lots of people are walking by the pool, but no one is dipping their toes in right now,” one well-connected observer said recently.
That includes progressive councillors Mike Layton, Joe Cressy and Kristyn Wong-Tam, former deputy police chief Peter Sloly and businessman Richard Peddie, chair of the Toronto Foundation and former president of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
All believe Tory is unbeatable in 2018 and so instead of trying to raise up to $2 million to fund a futile campaign now, they are shifting their sights to possible candidacies in the 2022 election, in which Tory has said he will not run.
They also realize that with Ford in the 2018 race, Tory would benefit from an “anybody but Ford” movement that likely would drive Liberal and many NDP supporters to his camp. That scenario played a major role in Chow’s poor showing in 2014, a race in which she started as the perceived front-runner.
Still, Ford will be a tough competitor for Tory. He’s got the unquestioning loyalty of Ford Nation, the coalition of disaffected, angry and disillusioned voters who love his “us-against-them” politics of alienation and polarization.
He already has the support of at least three city councilors: Giorgio Mammoliti, nephew Michael Ford and Vincent Crisanti, who was rightly stripped by Tory of his role as one of the city’s deputy mayors after declaring he was backing Ford.
In addition, a number of media outlets, notably the Toronto Sun, CP24 and AM640 talk shows, are providing him with the seemingly unlimited and fawning coverage that he so clearly craves. Also, large crowds will attend his rallies, all of it fuelling the long-term dreams of Ford Nation to see another Ford in the mayor’s office.
While 2018 may be a writeoff for Ford, the next election in 2022 may actually provide his best shot at winning. Without Tory in the race, the left field could be crowded with candidates, such as Layton, Wong-Tam, Cressy and even George Smitherman, who is expected to run for city council next year. The centre and left vote could be so splintered that Ford, with his rock-solid core of 30 to 35 per cent of voters, might emerge victorious.
Just another prediction, though — one that could indeed also turn out to be way too early.
While 2018 may be a writeoff for Ford, the next election in 2022 may actually provide his best shot at winning
Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca