Doug Ford pushes back on negative polling as some conservatives begin ‘contingency planning’

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he is “no Justin Trudeau” as he rejects a string of negative polling and public protest choosing, instead, to rely on internal party metrics as a sign of his personal popularity.

During a housing-related announcement, Global News asked the premier about the shelf life of political leaders before him and whether he believes Ontarians might be “turning the page” on his leadership after nearly eight years in power.

Ford, who has managed to secure three successive majority governments, rebuffed any comparisons to his political predecessors.

“With all due respect to the other premiers, I’m Doug Ford. I’m not Dalton McGuinty. I’m not Kathleen Wynne and I’m sure as heck not Justin Trudeau,” Ford said.

While Ford has a comfortable three years remaining in his current mandate, recent polling has raised questions about how much runway the premier has left.

An Angus Reid survey pegged Ford’s approval rating at 21 per cent, while a Liaison Strategies survey clocked the Progressive Conservative party’s support at 35 per cent, second to the Ontario Liberals.

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Over the past quarter century, poor polling, combined with a leader’s time in office tends to determine the shelf life of a premier or prime minister.

Former Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty resigned in 2013 after nine years and three months in office in the wake of the gas plant scandal and shaky popularity.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper hung on for 9 years and nine months before being unseated by Justin Trudeau‘s Liberals in 2015.

In 2025, after a free fall in public opinion polling and a caucus revolt, Trudeau called it quits after 9 years and 4 months in the Prime Minister’s office.

Ford, who will cross the eight year mark on June 29, suggested that isn’t going to happen to him.

“Justin Trudeau wasn’t sitting at 41 per cent,” Ford said pointing to internal party polling conducted by Campaign Research which shows the PC party at 41 per cent, the Liberals at 28 per cent and the NDP at 20 per cent.

“If the election was held today, we wouldn’t just form a majority we would form a massive majority, a super majority.”
“I’m no Justin Trudeau, ok?,” Ford added.

Still, a grassroots group of conservatives called Project Ontario – who insist that they aren’t challenging Ford’s leadership – says there has been some “contingency planning” in case Ford decided to step out of the limelight.

“There’s some conversations happening about the need to be prepared should the premier make a decision,” said Matt Spoke with Project Ontario who stressed that realistically change likely won’t take place this year.

“I think the premier is very confident in his role, I don’t think he’s going to be the first to buckle under pressure and he could hold off another election until 2030 if he wants to, so there’s lots of time to see what happens.”

While Project Ontario has called on the government to return to the “first principles” that got the government elected in 2018, they’re also cautioning Ford that headlines focusing on his personal popularity and who might pose a leadership challenge will continue if he doesn’t course correct.

“We’re definitely seeing evidence that that pressure is going to start mounting,” Spoke said.

“My sense is that the premier is going to have to make one of two decisions: change course, make room for someone else to change course, or face voters that are unhappy by the time they have another option to vote for.”