Suddenly, Ford looks beatable
Ontario Premier Doug Ford insists he doesn’t trust polls, especially the ones that show his approval rating dropping fast.
“I don't believe in polls, especially five months before the election,” Ford told an Ottawa radio talk show host this week. “And I don't believe in Liberal pollsters. They play this game all the time.”
It may be a game to Ford, who in truth seems to love polls given the amount of private polling that his governing Conservative party is conducting these days.
But barely four months before the Ontario election on June 2, a series of polls in the past week that indicate more and more voters are becoming fed up with Ford with each successive wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is a growing concern within Ford’s re-election team.
That’s because while most polls put the Conservatives slightly ahead of both the NDP and Liberals, voter approval rating of Ford’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis now hovers around 30 per cent, less than half of what it was in the early days of the pandemic.
Indeed, increasingly, Ford looks beatable in the coming election — an outcome considered impossible just a few months ago.
In fact, a poll released last week by Innovative Research Group found the Liberals favoured by 36 per cent of decided voters compared to 35 per cent for the Conservatives and just 22 per cent for the NDP.
“Ultimately, while the PCs have managed to remain competitive, the reaction to the latest wave of restrictions and lockdowns has left Ford’s personal brand weakened and could lead to future problems for the party as a whole,” the polling firm said.
Besides his falling performance ratings, Ford is facing more troubles as the election looms just 19 weeks away.
The sudden resignation last week of Rod Phillips, former finance minister and lately long-term care minister, is a major loss for Ford. Phillips was viewed as one of the “grown-ups” in Ford’s cabinet, a veteran political operative who brought a sense of stability to Ford’s team after a disastrous first year in office.
Martin Regg Cohn, the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist, wrote this week that Phillips “was the minister of competence who could see around corners in a government that goes by its gut.
Now, with the June 2 election looming, Ford is alone at the wheel.”
Just days after Phillips’ departure, Ford is already showing that he’s back to his chaotic, old self.
Desperate to win back the love of voters frustrated with the current COVID restrictions, Ford promised — apparently without consulting with his team — that he’s “going to make some announcements later this week about going back to other levels of restrictions.”
And speaking of being “alone at the wheel,” Ford was rightly criticized this week for doing a FaceTime video interview with a Toronto TV station while driving his pickup truck during Monday’s snow storm.
Importantly, voters who were sick of the chaos and incompetence that Ford displayed in the early days of his term are likely sick anew of the chaos and incompetence that he’s displaying now.
In addition, Ford may see the loss of many key ridings that the Tories won in 2018 due to the decisions of six of his sitting MPPs, in addition to Phillips, to not seek re-election. For example, the Ajax riding that Phillips represented was once a Liberal stronghold, but it could also well fall to the NDP, whose candidate is popular former Ajax mayor Steve Parrish.
Also worrying for Ford’s team is the realization that the Liberals are primed to run serious campaigns in every riding they lost in 2018 and the NDP is ready to fight for as many of the 40 seats that it won in 2018 as it can.
Combined, these signs aren’t great for Ford — whether he trusts the polls or not.