[Toronto – October 26, 2010] As other polls and pundits were calling the race for Toronto’s new mayor “too close to call,” EKOS correctly predicted a strong win for Rob Ford. Over the last week of the race, EKOS’ nightly polling showed Ford with a widening lead over his nearest rival. Our final three day roll up was nearly identical to the final election result.

So why this clearly flawed sense of a tightly deadlocked race? The other polls were off for different reasons. First, Ford surged in the last few days of his campaign and this late trend was missed… [More...]

Posted on October 26th, 2010 under Toronto. Comments: 1

[Ottawa – October 24, 2010] – Further to our release on October 22nd, we extended our polling for three days to see if the race had changed in the final stages. While the final three days of polling provides too small a sample (n=275) to treat this as a reliable stand alone poll, it is more than adequate to test the hypothesis that Rob Ford continues to possess a significant lead.

Recall that in our last release, Mr. Ford had an eight point lead. Some speculated that because polling was conducted over an eight-day period (we do not poll on the… [More...]

Posted on October 24th, 2010 under Toronto. Comments: None

[Ottawa – October 22, 2010] – Based on a randomly dialled sample of 500 Torontonian voters, Rob Ford enjoys a significant eight point advantage over George Smitherman (43.9 to 35.6) in the closing stretch of what has been a fascinating mayoralty campaign in Toronto. While not decisive enough to declare Mr. Ford a certain winner, he is considerably more likely to emerge successfully over Mr. Smitherman on Monday.

This claim is not only based on the quite significant (but not insurmountable) lead he now enjoys, but also from analysing the underlying anatomy of voter support. While George Smitherman enjoys a lead… [More...]

Posted on October 22nd, 2010 under Toronto. Comments: None

CONSERVATIVES STILL STRUGGLE IN CITIES

[OTTAWA – October 13, 2008] – The Conservatives may well win the election tomorrow, but they are likely to win again without much support in the most economically and socially dynamic places in Canada: the big cities.

“If, as seems

Posted on October 13th, 2008 under Montreal, Ontario, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver. Comments: None

Liberals/NDP remain in the hunt in big cities

[OTTAWA – September 23, 2008] – Despite the substantial, and increasingly solid, Conservative lead over the other parties nationally, it is a very different story when it comes to Canada’s biggest cities: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The Tories are not in the horserace in Montreal, lag badly in Toronto, and are in a dogfight with the NDP in Vancouver.

Posted on September 23rd, 2008 under Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver. Comments: None