2003 Municipal Election: Poll pegs Miller as Toronto's next mayor

[ganjavih]

Poll pegs Miller as Toronto's next mayor

By JENNIFER LEWINGTON
Globe and Mail Update

David Miller leads John Tory in two-man sprint to the wire to be the next mayor of Toronto, both of them boosted by the stunning collapse by former front-runner Barbara Hall, according to a new poll released yesterday.

The survey, conducted for the Globe and Mail, CFTO and CFRB radio by Ipsos-Reid, shows Mr. Miller with 37 per cent support of decided voters compared to 31 per cent for Mr. Tory, while Ms. Hall has plummeted to 19 per cent _ with less than a week to go before voting day on Nov. 10.

Odds are, right now David Miller will win, predicted John Wright, senior vice-president of public affairs for the polling company.

On several counts, the poll highlights how the west-end councillor — a virtual unknown city-wide before the race began last January — holds a solid edge over Mr. Tory, the former Rogers Cable executive and long-time Conservative strategist who backed Mayor Mel Lastman in 1997 and 2000.

Meanwhile, another critical factor in Mr. Miller's favour: he holds a slight, but surprising edge over Mr. Tory among homeowners — 39 per cent to 36 per cent. That's a striking statistic, says Mr. Wright, because those who own property are more likely to vote than tenants. As well, Mr. Miller scores ahead of his mayoral rivals among the more affluent and better-educated Toronto voters as well as among young people and women.

With one in five voters still unsure who they want as a replacement for Mr. Lastman, according to the poll, the next six days are shaping up as a pitched battle between Mr. Miller and Mr. Tory and the clear choices that each stands for.

Be sure to read Tuesday's Globe and Mail for complete coverage of Toronto's mayoral race.

 

[alklay]

I would have never predicted this. Who would have thunk that a city that loved Mel could now vote for the anti-Mel. Barbara Hall's collapse though, is not surprising.

 

[miesvanderjoe]

I think that Miller is going to win not only because he leads in the polls, but because on the whole I guess that his average supporter is more passionate in their commitment to him and is more concerned about the outcome of this electionin than the average Tory supporter is. Thus a higher proportion of Miller supporters will bother to cast ballots on election day.

 

[gulfboy]

that's a very good point that I had thought of before. Those who support Tory are definitely not as passionate about voting as those who support David Miller. Miller's supporters feel strongly about instating change at City Hall while Tory's supporters would actually feel well off even if Miller or Hall were elected.

 

[gulfboy]

I knew back in January that David Miller was the perfect mayor in waiting. He's David Crombie II... or David II for short. He's the one to lead Toronto into a new decade full of prosperity.

I know that with this 6 point lead, there's not much any candidate can do to catch up... If anything, Barbara Hall will lose more support to David Miller as people realize she's not going to win and they'll throw their support behind Miller.

 

[Archivistower]

I can't believe I live in a city that's going to elect David Miller, I had almost given up hope after the last municipal election. Someone who can think. Someone with experience in municipal politics. Who knew it was possible?

I'm still worried, though, about Bab's collapse. If she goes down too far, I'm afraid more of those votes will translate into Tory than Miller.

 

[spmarshall]

Royson James pretty much endorses Tory in his latest column. With the Star following the right-wing papers and leading towards a Tory endorsement, Miller could be badly hurt. John Barber is the only mainstream print jounrnalist that's backing Miller.

It's going to be a nail-biter.

 

[troodie]

i don't know if royson is really endorsing tory. he did a piece on miller yesterday that was equally full of praise.

 

[building babel]

Mel was the disease.
Miller is the antidote.
The patient may yet survive.

 

[Canuck 36]

I wouldn't mind Tory as deputy-mayor (won't happen this election of course). The two would both make good mayors, but at least in this way they could counter-balance each other on some issues (like Pro-Union-happy Miller, which makes a lot of people uneasy, and the inevitable Negative-Option-Voting which Tory would introduce should he get power).

 

[Are Be]

Archivistower
said

I'm still worried, though, about Bab's collapse. If she goes down too far, I'm afraid more of those votes will translate into Tory than Miller.

Why the Pessimism? Look at it this way:
1, Tory is very capable
2, Miller is very capable
3, Tory’s economic and financial plan will no doubt help the city immensely - more so than Miller
4, Miller was endorsed by the public sector unions - unions that don’t give a damn for private sector workers – if public sector unions gave a damn for priv ate sector unions, one could argue that the Public Sector unions are guilty of incompetent or negligent representation of their membership—put the screws to taxpayers, even if it hurts the private sector!
Public Sector Unions: RAISE TAXES TO PAY FOR WAGE INCREASES!! WHERE’S THE PROBLEM?!?!
Private Sector Unions: CUT TAXES TO HELP KEEP OUR EMPLOYER IN BUSINESS OR A CORPORATE TAX REFUGEE FLEEING TO ANOTHER JURISDICTION - Raising Taxes= job losses –HUGE PROBLEM! etc.)

Look at the bright side of Hall's collapse. If she goes down too far, hopefully more of those votes will translate into Tory than Miller.


Hall deserves reprimand coming her way

By JOHN BARBER

UPDATED AT 11:17 AM EST Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003

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It's a good thing Barbara Hall didn't know the latest poll results when she made that defiant speech -- her best of the campaign so far -- at the Canadian Club yesterday. Her supporters would have found it much more difficult to cheer had they actually known at the time what they all just glumly suspected: that support for Ms. Hall's mayoralty continues to melt faster than soft ice cream on a hot summer's day.

It doesn't matter what anyone in the Hall camp thinks now, because the real news is out. The story that could have been Hall Attacks Miller is now Miller Buries Hall.

Today's Globe and Mail poll demonstrates vividly how that happened, with Ms. Hall sliding an extraordinary 25 points since August and Mr. Miller gaining exactly the same amount, replacing her as the clear front-runner. No counterspin can save her campaign from its current trajectory; it's a death spiral.

Good timing would have been for Ms. Hall to attack Mr. Miller when it mattered -- before her underestimated rival neatly and definitively replaced her as the leading voice for civic reform in the current election campaign. But in light of that reality, her frustrated quip yesterday about "that damn bridge" just sounds like a bad excuse for being on the wrong side of a major issue, as does her description of Mr. Miller's obviously effective island airport advertising as "scaremongering at its very worst."

And nobody cares when she engages in her own scaremongering (at its most inept), accusing Mr. Miller of planning tolls "that would cost commuters from Scarborough or Etobicoke $1,500 a year."

It just seems sad when she lards her speech with an old, admiring quotation from influential urban guru Jane Jacobs, who is now working hard to elect David Miller, a candidate she describes as "the only person with a coherent vision of Toronto's future, with the ability to do what needs to be done, and the energy and will to do it."

By recalling the most prominent of all those who have abandoned her -- or, more accurately, those she has abandoned in her quest for suburban votes -- Ms. Hall only reminds us that that was then. This is now.

And now, progressive Torontonians who might have admired her six long years ago clearly realize that they can't afford to waste their vote on Barbara Hall in the 2003 election.

They're in the majority for once; they have the chance to back a winner. Sentiment cannot save her.

The urge for the left to gather under a single banner will only intensify as John Tory continues to consolidate the right. Whether John Nunziata immolated himself or whether the ominously ill-defined "Tory camp" helped him with his little auto-da-fé, the result is the same: Mr. Tory is alone on the right now.

Although he is still running second, and despite the fact that a clear majority of Torontonians favours change over continuity at City Hall, an even split of the "change" vote could still elect Mr. Tory mayor.

He doesn't have the numbers to do it by himself. Neither does Ms. Hall, obviously. But if she does manage to retard her slide by continuing to attack Mr. Miller, she might still be able to elect John Tory mayor.

The cruellest but plainest analysis of the Hall meltdown is that she is a worthy figure who got what she deserved. She ran a thoroughly municipal campaign, meaning that she spent more effort angling to acquire the advantages of incumbency than she did fighting political battles. She left that dirty work to Mr. Miller while she manoeuvred, especially with the notorious "Friends of Barbara Hall" campaign, to keep him out of the race.

It wasn't a bad strategy: If she had been the only progressive candidate in the race, she would have won in a walk. But she stuck with the walk strategy even after it failed, and Mr. Miller refused to back down.

And rather than giving Torontonians clear reasons to favour her over Mr. Miller, she kept walking as if she really were alone on the left, risking her entire political base in a questionable search for right-wing suburban votes.

She made the basic political mistake of neglecting to dance with the one that brung her, and she deserves the rebuke that is coming.

jbarber@globeandmail.ca


© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

[spmarshall]

Contracting out work doesn't benefit private sector workers or private sector unions, as it will be the same jobs as before, done by the same people (with pay cuts) with no union-public or private-representation.

What am I doing? It's useless arguing anyway.:brickwall

 

[sdoody]

the inevitable Negative-Option-Voting which Tory would introduce

Why does everyone keep harping on this? Rogers brought out that negative-option billing scheme before Tory was appointed CEO. Also people keep bringing up the fact that Tory is planning to put an incinerator 'in the port lands'. When has he ever said he plans to do this? He's not insane...he knows the value of the waterfront as much as anyone else. If we're making things up, why don't we just say that he's planning to raze the TD towers and put it there?

If people don't like him, fine (I'm not saying that there isn't a reason not to like him), but at least don't like him for the right reasons.

 

[nicetommy2002]

Creating rumours and expounding them as though they are true, is the typical lefty way of doing things. Look at Miller's leaflet on the island airport. He had tons of 737 series 200's [one of the noisiest jets that hasn't been in production for almost 20 years] flying overhead. What a f**ken joke considering the 737 series 200 wouldn't even be able to crash land on that short runway, let alone land on it. It's an inefficient gas guzler that airlines have been phasing out of their fleets. Playing on people's fears like Miller did, by manufacturing lies of that magnitude, is a stupid thing to do.

Having said that, I do think he would make a good mayor for the city. I think Tory and Hall would also make good mayors.

Sidenote: Bill Davis and David Peterson today threw their support behind Tory.

 

[Canuck 36]

And yet my praise of him goes unnoticed:

I wouldn't mind Tory as deputy-mayor (won't happen this election of course). The two would both make good mayors, but at least in this way they could counter-balance each other on some issues