Bill Blair
knocks off Dan Harris in Scarborough Southwest if he runs as a Liberal
Harris tied for second with generic Conservative candidate
TORONTO February
14th, 2015 - In
a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 557 voters
in the federal riding of Scarborough Southwest, almost 4-in-10 will vote for
Bill Blair, Toronto’s soon-to-be-former police chief, if he runs as a Liberal
in a federal election held today (39%), while about 3-in-10 would vote for the
incumbent, NDP MP Dan Harris (29%) or for a Conservative candidate (past
candidate Gavan Paranchothy's name was used - 27%).
Despite this, Harris has higher approvals
Four-in-ten
voters approve of incumbent Dan Harris (39%), and his net favourable score (approve
minus disapprove) is a healthy +18. Despite his lead in voter preference,
however, Bill Blair has the approval of 3-in-10 (29%) and a net of +6. Blair’s
approval is high among the young and those in lower income groups. Harris’s
approval is common to slightly older groups and those slightly wealthier.
"Bill Blair is playing his
cards very close to his chest, but we know from previous polling he’s popular
in Scarborough and among Liberals, and Scarborough Southwest was a Liberal
riding until the last election. Even then, the margin of victory was less than
2000 votes. He’ll be a star candidate for any party which woos him, but at this
point his best fit is as a Liberal," said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne
Bozinoff.
Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum
Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416)
960-9603.
