TBNewswatch has now done two online polls of the day asking respondents to indicate their preference for mayor. The August 20th poll was at the start of the race just after nominations closed and they showed Ken Boshcoff out as the clear frontrunner with a majority of the votes cast (51.9 percent). In second place then was Peng You at 20.4 percent followed by Gary Mack at 17.3 percent. Going forward to October 8th, as of approximately 12 noon there had been a total of 1,552 ballots cast and the results show that Ken Boshcoff still appears headed to take the mayor’s chair with about 40 percent of the vote. In second place is now Gary Mack with about 25 percent of the vote followed by Peng You at 24 percent. Clint Harris and Robert Szczepanski come in next at 6.6 and 4.5 percent respectively. These results are summarized in Figure 1 and the results for the October 8th poll may change slightly as they were not yet final but after over 20 hours of online responding one suspects they will not change a great deal.
In terms of what has transpired, the clear majority of respondents in support of Ken Boshcoff at the dawn of the race has eroded somewhat as the campaign as progressed but he is still poised to take the mayor’s chair given the ground that has to be covered by the next two closest candidates – Mack and You. Moreover, the fact is that they appear pretty evenly balanced in terms of support. This is only an online poll with all of its attendant flaws and the only poll that counts is of course on election day but the two strongest candidates aside from Ken Boshcoff appear to have evenly split their support. However, there is an additional dynamic and that is illustrated in Figure 2.
In terms of the change percentage point share in candidate shares, the momentum since August 20th appears to be in the Mack camp as his share has grown by 7.6 percentage points. The You support has nevertheless grown by 4 percent while Szczepanski has increased by 1.5 percent. This growth appears to have been accompanied by a shift away from both Harris and Boshcoff with the later seeing the greatest percentage point decline.
There are still nearly two weeks to go and it will be interesting to see if the mayoral race in Thunder Bay becomes a more competitive horse race with a photo finish.