Brad Bradford closing gap on Olivia Chow in mayoral race: Poll

Numbers for Beaches-East York councillor increasingly positive as voters grow weary of incumbent

Published Jun 23, 2026  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  2 minute read

City Councillor Brad Bradford, of Beaches-East York, with his daughter Bronwyn (right) and his wife Kathryn with Briar at a kids playground. Photo by Jack Boland /Toronto Sun

The latest poll in Toronto’s race for mayor shows challenger Brad Bradford catching up to incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow.

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According to Mainstreet Research, 43.6% of decided voters would vote for Chow, but 37.8% would vote for Beaches-East York Councillor Bradford. That’s bad news for Chow, according to the survey, who held a commanding lead in earlier polls. With John Tory exiting the race for mayor, it would appear many of his supporters have flocked to Bradford, who stood at only 17% support in February while Tory was still in the running.

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Even more dangerous for Chow are the numbers that skew for Bradford in a two-way race. When those voting for someone else were asked who they would vote for if they had to choose between Bradford and Chow, Bradford led at 51.9% to Chow’s 48.1%, just slightly outside the poll’s margin of error.

The brighter outlook for Bradford came as no surprise to Kelly Aizicowitz of advocacy group A Better City Toronto. She said Chow has failed miserably on crime, transit and affordability, top issues going into the October election, according to the poll.

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“That’s because Torontonians have been seeing, feeling and living with crime, gridlock, disorder, skyrocketing prices under this mayor who has not done much to tackle any of these problems,” she said.

Mayor Olivia Chow: Increasingly unpopular Photo by Jack Boland /Toronto Sun

Bradford’s support has room to grow: Advocate

Mainstreet said it’s shaping up to be an interesting race.

“The mayoral election contest in Toronto is shaping up to be more interesting than expected between the two main contenders” Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi said in a news release. “While Olivia Chow leads by almost six and has a ceiling close to 49%, a near equal number of voters say they will definitely not vote for her.”

Aizicowitz said Bradford is still introducing himself to the city, while voters are likely familiar with Chow.

“If I were in the mayor’s shoes today, I would be very worried,” she said. “We know that a lot of Torontonians don’t necessarily know who Councillor Bradford is, but he’s doing work to get people to know him. Everyone knows who she (Chow) is and it looks like she’s hitting her ceiling, but he has room to grow.”

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City souring on Chow

Only 40.6% of those polled approved or strongly approved of the job Chow was doing, but 56% disapproved or strongly disapproved.

That was also not a surprise to Aizicowitz, who said Torontonians are just looking for a city that can perform basic functions, such as timely snow removal, garbage collection and keeping the pools open with relatively little fuss and without growing costs to the taxpayer.

“We just keep paying more and more. There’s been a 25% property tax increase under Mayor Chow and we’re getting less,” she said. “The mayor is basically telling Torontonians, ‘This is fine.’ And it’s not. And she’s hoping we’re all going to be apathetic enough to accept this decline. And we don’t have to. We can choose change come October.”

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