Torontonians vote on Monday in a mayoral race that final polling put within the margin of error, with challenger Brad Bradford at 49 percent and incumbent Olivia Chow at 47 percent among decided and leaning voters, after advance voting nearly doubled the 2022 figure.
Toronto votes on Monday in a municipal election whose mayoral race has tightened into a statistical tie, with polling places open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and voters in line by closing time still able to cast a ballot.
A Liaison Strategies poll released October 21 put challenger Brad Bradford at 49 percent and incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow at 47 percent among decided and leaning voters, a gap inside the survey's margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Among all respondents, Bradford registered 42 percent, Chow 41 percent and 14 percent were undecided, after a survey of 1,000 Toronto residents conducted October 18 and 19.
Turnout is already running far ahead of the last municipal election. The City of Toronto reported 222,550 ballots cast during six days of advance voting, nearly double the 115,911 advance votes recorded in 2022, with 53,363 voters on the final advance day alone. Housing, transit, affordability and public services have dominated the campaign in Canada's largest city.
The polling-place hours and voting rules come from the City of Toronto's own election notice, which is the primary source for the mechanics of the vote. The horse-race numbers rest on a single pollster's survey, and the advance-voting comparison is the city's reported count; neither settles the outcome, and the poll's margin of error means the race is effectively tied rather than leaning to either candidate.
The contest matters beyond the mayor's office because the winner will steer a city under pressure on housing costs and transit delivery for the next four years, and because the advance-voting surge suggests an electorate paying closer attention than in 2022.
Results will begin to arrive after polls close at 8 p.m., and the first test of the polling will be whether the advance-voting surge carries into election-day turnout or simply moved existing voters earlier.