Candidates in middle face delicate balancing act

Leading candidates for Toronto mayor will lock horns Wednesday night in a debate that comes as the race enters a crucial phase.

The three-month campaign is headed into the home stretch, and with less than four weeks to go before voting day on June 26, candidates are running out of time to make their case to voters.

“The stakes are really, really high for everyone on that stage,” said Myer Siemiatycki, professor emeritus of politics at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).

The event is being co-hosted by the Star, United Way Greater Toronto and TMU, and will focus on the critical social and economic challenges facing the city.

The candidates taking part are Josh Matlow, Olivia Chow, Mark Saunders, Mitzie Hunter, Ana Bailão and Brad Bradford, who organizers say were invited because they had at least five per cent support in an average of polls conducted between May 1 and 18.

Chow, the progressive former city councillor and NDP MP, has emerged as the clear frontrunner, with polls showing her support among decided voters hovering above 30 per cent since the start of May. The Star’s poll tracker suggests Saunders, the former police chief, is fighting for second with Matlow, the current councillor for Toronto—St. Paul’s, and Bailão, the former council member for Davenport. Those three are each polling below 15 per cent.

Lorne Bozinoff, president of polling firm Forum Research, said the trailing candidates need to find a way to dent Chow’s support, and fast, to prevent the election from turning into a “coronation.”

Since debates started two weeks ago, “no one’s landed a punch on her,” said Bozinoff, whose firm conducts polling for the Star. He said rival candidates will be looking to step up their attacks on Chow by hammering her on her perceived weaknesses, including the perception she would significantly raise property tax rates.

Mayoral hopefuls who are behind in the polls will hope to use the debate to break away from the pack and position themselves as the first choice of the two-thirds of voters who aren’t supporting Chow.

With the trailing candidates all lumped together with less than about 15 per cent support, accord- ing to polls, Siemiatycki said to ex- pect a dogfight. “They will be turn- ing on each other,” he said.

But that dynamic will be complicated by the likelihood that candidates struggling to win support and raise funds could run out of steam soon, and consider dropping out. At this stage candidates can’t remove their names from the ballot, but they could tell their supporters to vote for someone else.

That could lead Wednesday’s debaters to go easy on rivals with similar political leanings in the hopes of securing their backing before election day.

“They’ve got to criticize their opponents but not annoy them too much, because they may want to try to get their endorsement right near the end,” Bozinoff said. “That’s going to be the balancing act.”

Saunders and Coun. Bradford (Ward 19, Beaches—East York) are courting right-leaning voters, while Bailão and Hunter (the former Liberal MPP for Scarborough-Guildwood) have been running campaigns aimed at the centre and centre-left. Matlow has past ties to the Liberal party but has framed himself as an independent progressive.

As the clock ticks down to election day, Siemiatycki predicts the “desperation factor” could set in for candidates who aren’t in the lead, and their debate rhetoric could get harsher.

“I think the tone could get, if not nastier, then more pointed and sharper as candidates reflect the desperation they feel to break from the pack to at least identify themselves as a strong number two challenger,” he said.