A new poll shows nearly half of Torontonians approve of the job Mayor Rob Ford is doing, despite the emergence of a new video depicting the mayor rambling and swearing in a restaurant while apparently intoxicated.
According to the Forum Research poll, 45 per cent of Torontonians said they approve of the job Ford is doing, the exact same percentage of Torontonians who approved of Ford a year ago before the mayor became plagued by a scandal involving drugs and alcohol.
“The thing with Rob Ford is he’s way more dependable in his public life. When he says he’s going to cut taxes and keep them low, he delivers. He’s not so dependable in his private life,” Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff told CP24 Thursday.
The poll was conducted the evening after a new video emerged online showing the mayor rambling and swearing in Jamaican Patois at a restaurant. However it appears to have had little impact on his core support.
“The recent video seems to have done the Mayor's image no harm, but then there's no reason it should, given what we've seen already,” Bozinoff said in a news release issued alongside the poll Thursday.
Ford admitted Tuesday that the video showed him the previous evening after he had been drinking, but has since insisted that it was a ‘minor setback’ and that he’s entitled to a private life.
The incident comes just a few months after Ford told various media outlets, including CP24, that he was done with alcohol and substance abuse.
Despite ongoing negative media attention around his behaviour and his admission that he smoked crack cocaine, Ford’s approval numbers have remained relatively steady throughout the scandal.
The latest poll also found that 37 per cent of respondents plan to vote for Ford in this year’s municipal election in October. It found Ford would be competitive in various theoretical match-ups between declared and rumoured candidates.
In a three-way race between Ford, TTC chair Karen Stintz and former councillor David Soknacki, Ford would take 36 per cent of the vote versus 29 per cent for Stintz and 19 per cent for Soknacki. All three have announced that they are running though Stintz has yet to formally sign up for the mayoral race.
In other theoretical match-ups, the poll found that Olivia Chow and radio host John Tory could match Ford’s vote take or possibly surpass him.
The poll found Ford’s support strongest in Etobicoke/ York and Scarborough.
The penny-pinching mayor also enjoys strong support among younger voters, as well as those who earn less and those with less education.
The poll was conducted Jan. 22 through a telephone survey of 1,063 random Torontonians. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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