The Progressive Conservatives have widened their lead and appear to be on track to hold onto the riding of Whitby-Oshawa in tomorrow’s byelection, according to a new poll.
The Mainstreet Research poll of 584 residents found that 40 per cent of respondents intend to cast a ballot for Tory candidate Lorne Coe compared to 25 per cent for Liberal candidate Elizabeth Roy, 10 per cent for NDP candidate Niki Lundquist and five per cent for Green Party candidate Stacey Leadbetter.
Overall, Coe’s lead over Liberal candidate Elizabeth Roy increased by six percentage points from a Mainstreet Research poll released exactly one week ago. That poll found that 28 per cent of respondents were undecided compared to only five per cent in this one.
“We’ve seen a steep drop in the number of undecided voters and PC candidate Lorne Coe now has a comfortable lead” Mainstreet Research President Quito Maggi said in a press release accompanying the poll. “We expect the Liberals and NDP will outperform their polling numbers. Byelections are notoriously hard to predict, but with limited infrastructure we usually see the Green Party and Independent candidates perform below their polling numbers. As a result we expect the margin of victory to be less than 17%, but we are predicting a PC victory come Thursday night.”
In addition to polling decided voters, Mainstreet Research also asked undecided voters which way they were leaning.
When leaning voters were factored in, Coe’s support grew to 46 per cent compared to 29 per cent for Roy, 12 per cent for Lundquist and eight per cent for Leadbetter.
Whitby-Oshawa was represented by Christine Elliot up until her resignation in August.
The poll is considered accurate to within 4.34 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
