2022 Ontario Election Shows Ford and Liberals Neck-and-Neck

According to a new Postmedia-Leger poll, the 2022 Ontario election is shaping up to be an extremely tight race between the Conservatives and the Liberals,

Although more voters have a favourable impression of the Ontario Premier and Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford (40 per cent) than Liberal Leader Stephen Del Duca (23 per cent), just 34 per cent of respondents said they planned to vote for the PC party, compared to 31 per cent for the Liberals.

According to Andrew Enns, executive vice-president at Leger, that gap has been narrowing over the past eight months.

In March 2021, a Leger poll had the Conservatives at 38 per cent — a 10-point lead over the NDP. The Liberals were in third place with 23 per cent.

“The Liberals are in a much-improved situation and will be looking to build and improve upon that as we move closer to election time,” Enns said. “It’ll be a close race.”

“It seems that things are in a bit of a holding pattern for voters. The Conservatives still have a small lead. But when you take into account the potential margin of error for a poll of this size, you’re looking at a very close race between the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals,” Enns said.

The Liberals have the most support in the Metro Toronto area (43 per cent) compared to 28 per cent for the PCs. But the Conservatives have 46 per cent support in the Greater Toronto Area, compared to 25 per cent for the Liberals.

Although 39 per cent of people have a positive impression of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, this only translates into 26 per cent of the vote, which is down from 28 per cent in March 2021.

“I would suspect that there will be some hard questions of why that might be and how they will try to get back up to the level that they were at in 2018,” Enns said.