New Ontario poll gives Doug Ford's PCs a 9-point lead

Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives have a comfortable lead over their Liberal and New Democrat rivals in a new poll of Ontario voters published Wednesday. 

Polling conducted last week by Abacus Data finds 37 per cent of respondents supporting Ford and the Ontario PC Party, with 28 per cent favouring the Ontario Liberals under Steven Del Duca and 25 per cent backing Andrea Horwath's NDP. 

"If you're the PCs and you're looking at this number right now, you're feeling pretty good, I think," said David Coletto, the CEO of Abacus Data, in an interview. 

The vote split between the Liberals and the NDP is "allowing the Tories to go up the middle pretty easily," said Coletto. "Unless one of those two parties is able to consolidate much more of that vote, the Tories are going to continue to be in the driver's seat as they get closer to the spring and the [June 2] election." 

The Green Party of Ontario is the choice of five per cent of those polled, and another five per cent said they would support another party. 

The PC lead in the Abacus poll comes even though 46 per cent of respondents said they have a negative impression of Ford and 50 per cent said it's time for a change in government.

"There is widespread dissatisfaction with the Ford government and Premier Ford himself, although not to the extent it was prior to the pandemic," Coletto wrote in a summary of the poll's results. 

Asked to rank the top three issues facing the province, the COVID-19 pandemic unsurprisingly came out on top, with 60 per cent of respondents putting it among their priorities.

The rising cost of living was chosen as a top-three issue by 50 per cent, the healthcare system by 43 per cent and housing affordability by 39 per cent. 

Likely the poll's most worrisome finding for Ford and his PCs is how the respondents view the government's handling of those top issues.

How to rein in the cost of living and the cost of housing are big challenges, and voters will want all the parties to have answers, said Coletto. 

"People are looking for for some relief as these prices continue to go up and people feel their wages aren't following," he said. 

Asked for their impression of Ford, 32 per cent of those polled by Abacus said it's positive. That's similar to Ford's 30 per cent approval rating reported this week by the Angus Reid Institute in its quarterly poll on Canada's premiers.

Horwath also has a positive impression among 32 per cent of voters in the Abacus poll.