WINNIPEG – Mayoral candidates Brian Bowman and Judy Wasylycia-Leis are in a statistical tie at the top of a new Insightrix Research poll done for 680 CJOB and Global News in the first half of October.
The poll puts Bowman, a privacy lawyer, at the top with 38 per cent of decided voters’ support, with Wasylycia-Leis, a career politician, at 36 per cent, within the 3.5 per cent margin of error of the poll.
“Right now, it’s a neck-and-neck race between Brian Bowman and Judy Wasylycia-Leis,” said Lang McGilp, a senior research executive at Insightrix Research.
“I’ve always had Brian Bowman nipping at my heels,” Wasylycia-Leis said Monday morning when asked about the poll numbers. “I’ve got a solid plan to move this city forward.”
Bowman said the results added incentive for those working on his campaign.
“I’d be lying if I said the team didn’t have more bounce in their step this morning … but the work doesn’t stop,” he said.
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In another surprise, University of Manitoba administrator Robert-Falcon Ouellette is in third place with 14 per cent of decided voters’ support, while former councillor Gord Steeves, once considered among the strongest candidates, is fourth at nine per cent.
However, 29 per cent of those who intend to vote said they still hadn’t decided who they would vote for, which means the front-runner who captures a significant proportion of that undecided vote will pull ahead.
“We have 29 per cent of people who say they’re planning on voting, yet they have not decided who they’re going to vote for yet,” McGilp said.
“When you combine this with the fact that it’s a dead heat race between the two candidates, it could mean that on election day things could really alter from what we’re seeing right now, and it means Winnipeg residents really should make the effort to go out and vote because their vote could make the difference.”
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A total of 802 randomly selected Winnipeg residents were polled by telephone in person from Oct. 7 to 17. Respondents were asked “The Winnipeg municipal election is being held on Oct. 22. How likely are you to vote in this election?” and “Which of the following candidates do you plan to vote for?” Quotas were set by age, gender, and by postal code groupings and data are weighted to match the distribution of the population of Winnipeg. The margin of error is equal to plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Insightrix Research initially polled 600 people but when the results were so close, the pollster went back and did 200 more surveys.
“When we saw the poll’s early results on Friday, we were surprised,” said Global News Managing Editor Jon Lovlin. “We wanted to be journalistically responsible, and absolutely sure about the numbers, so we asked Insightrix to go back in the field, get a larger sample size, and reduce the margin of error. Insightrix did that over the weekend, and the result between Brian and Judy Wasylycia-Leis didn’t change at all.”
“We wanted to be certain that the numbers were coming in the way we thought they were,” McGilp said. “We did 200 more surveys and the results lined up perfectly, so we are confident in what the numbers are telling us today. In terms of what happens on election day, there could be some variations, but there’s explainable reasons for that.”
The poll is in “stark contrast” to an Insightrix Research poll conducted in late August and early September, Insightrix Research pointed out. In that poll, Wasylycia-Leis had a clear lead, with 38 per cent of decided voters saying they’d vote for her, and only 24 per cent saying they’d vote for Bowman.
READ MORE: Wasylycia-Leis leads poll but undecided vote leaves mayoral race open
“We really had three candidates who were strong when we did our poll back in the end of August, and that was Judy Wasylycia-Leis, Brian Bowman and Gord Steeves,” McGilp said. “What’s happening is, I think, Gord and Brian are of similar political angles or grouped a little bit more on the one side, so there was potential for a little bit of splitting of the vote, but I think Gord Steeves has moved himself a little bit more to the right and what’s happened is that’s enabled Brian Bowman to pick up some of those potential votes.”
— With files from Lauren McNabb
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