WINNIPEG – Robert-Falcon Ouellette wants Winnipeggers to vote with their hearts, not their heads.
The latest polls have him in third in the race for mayor, behind Judy Wasylycia-Leis and Brian Bowman, but Ouellete believes that could be because of strategic voting.
“I don’t think people are voting for Brian, I think they’re trying to vote against Judy, and I think that’s the wrong approach. You end up with the same old every time,” said Ouellete.
A Global/680 CJOB poll has Bowman and Wasylycia-Leis in a statistical tie.
In all previous polls Wasylycia-Leis was the clear front-runner.
Political analyst and former pollster Christopher Adams said there has been a strategic shift.
“I think Gord Steeves as well as Robert-Falcon Ouellete and others, their votes are moving to the front-running candidates and that’s not totally surprising,” said Adams. “It’s not one single factor that caused that vote to deteriorate, it’s the votes shifting over to the other two.”
That has the top two also changing their strategies, with Wasylycia-Leis trying to tell voters Winnipeg can’t afford Bowman and his promises, and Bowman saying a vote for anyone else is a vote for Judy.
Gord Steeves’ Tuesday news conference had him trying to make bus rapid transit the defining issue. Steeves said he would cancel all remaining expansion, while Bowman has said he would finish all six legs over the next 25 years.
But Steeves also questioned the poll.
“Obviously we acknowledge a poll can change, but I’ve never seen a result that closely mirrors that poll,” said Steeves.
Adams said previous polls may have also influenced how Winnipeggers now say they will vote.
“We had a number of polls that we saw in late August and early September that were showing Judy 20 points ahead, but that was the fifth and sixth inning. Now we are into the ninth inning and the score seems to have changed,” said Adams.
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