It appears celebrity businessman Kevin O’Leary could give Conservative Party leadership hopefuls a run for their money if he decides to enter the race, a new poll suggests.

The former Dragons' Den host announced his potential interest in the leadership race less than a week ago and in a recently released poll by Mainstreet Research, it appears O’Leary is tied with Peter MacKay among Conservative Party voters in a hypothetical leadership race.

MacKay, a former PC leader, received 25 per cent among Conservative voters while O’Leary, a political newcomer, received 23 per cent support from respondents.

“Kevin O’Leary is a well-known media personality. He has several reality television shows. Name recognition is definitely very high,” Mainstreet Research President Quito Maggi told CP24 in an interview Monday.

He said O’Leary’s strong poll result appears to step from his name recognition.

“Somewhat surprisingly, none of the other early insider favourites is registering much support with Conservative voters, including Jason Kenney at just 8 (per cent), Lisa Raitt at 4.4 (per cent), Maxime Bernier with 4 (per cent), and Kellie Leitch at 3 (per cent),” Maggi said in an analysis accompanying the poll.

Not only is O'Leary just slightly behind MacKay, the poll also suggests the TV personality leads in western Canada.

“Kevin O'Leary is an entertaining personality and shameless self-promoter. He has been called the Canadian Donald Trump and follows in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono, Ronald Reagan and other celebrities who have capitalized on name recognition to enter politics,” Maggi said in the analysis.

“Should he actually enter the Conservative leadership race there would be support - but whether he actually intends to run is another matter entirely. Certainly he has the potential to shake-up the race and despite being a newcomer to politics, would be one of the candidates to watch.”

The survey also found that interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose appears to be doing well so far and that the honey-moon phase of the Liberals’ new term continues as the party still enjoys strong support.

However Maggi said opinion number could shift after the House of Commons gets back to work later this month.

“Really nothing’s happened since the election,” Maggi told CP24. “Once we have a budget, once we see what happens in the House of Commons after the 25th of January once they start sitting again, those numbers might start moving around a bit.”

While the results might be interesting for political watchers, Maggi acknowledged that it is extremely early in the race and that any possible speculation about who might fare well is “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

A vote on the permanent leadership for the Conservative Party is not expected until 2017.

The survey, which polled 1,777 Conservative Party voters, including Conservative "leaning" voters, was conducted on Jan. 15, 2016.

It is considered accurate plus or minus 2.32 per cent, 19 times out of 20.