There is a particular tension in the final days of a campaign, a sense that the ground beneath the candidates has begun to shift in ways no one can fully predict. In Toronto, that shift has been seismic. What began as a comfortable lead for incumbent Olivia Chow has narrowed to something approaching a dead heat, and with election day on October 26, the race for the city's highest office has become a contest of inches, decided by turnout and the quiet arithmetic of undecided voters.
An exclusive poll conducted by Nanos Research for CP24 and CTV News Toronto, surveying 762 adult residents between October 15 and 18, found Chow with 49.8 per cent support among decided voters and Brad Bradford with 46.6 per cent . The margin of error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points, meaning the race is effectively a statistical tie. Another four per cent said they would support someone else, and sixteen per cent of all respondents remained undecided, down from twenty-two per cent earlier in the month .
A separate Mainstreet Research poll, conducted October 16 to 18 among 1,000 adults, placed Bradford slightly ahead with 48.9 per cent to Chow's 47.5 per cent among decided voters . Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet, described the result as "a seismic shift," noting that Chow had previously led in three of four regions of the city. Bradford now leads in Etobicoke and North York, while Chow holds Scarborough and downtown .
The geography of the race tells its own story. Nanos found Chow ahead in Scarborough with 50.9 per cent and downtown and East York with 58.2 per cent, while Bradford led in North York at 54.1 per cent and Etobicoke at 52.9 per cent . The age divide is equally pronounced: Chow holds more than 55 per cent support among voters aged 18 to 34, while Bradford leads among those 35 to 54 and those 55 and older . Older voters are more likely to turn out, a fact that gives the Bradford campaign a structural advantage in a close race .
The tightening followed the withdrawal of former federal cabinet minister Chris Alexander, who suspended his campaign on October 6, the same day advance voting began . Before his exit, Chow held leads of six to eleven points in various polls. Afterward, her support consolidated but Bradford's grew, and the race contracted into the two-candidate contest it is now .
Both candidates spent the final week making their closing arguments. Bradford unveiled a plan to eliminate slow zones on the subway system, requiring the TTC to adopt a zero-slow-zone standard within his first hundred days and publishing monthly reports on delays . Chow campaigned at an East York apartment building where tenants had reported years of mold and pest problems, reiterating her plan for a Bad Landlord Task Force and expanded use of remedial action orders . Affordability ranked as the top issue for voters at 38.3 per cent, followed by transit and traffic at 22.4 per cent and crime and safety at 16.4 per cent .
Nik Nanos said the probability still favors Chow "just because she has an advantage numerically," but described the race as "not over by any stretch" . The final debate on October 22, he suggested, could be the defining moment . Both candidates, asked about the polls, offered versions of the same refrain: the only poll that matters is on election day.
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Sources: CTV News, CP24, CityNews Toronto, NOW Toronto, Nanos Research, Mainstreet Research
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