Parrish Leads But Race Narrows in Mississauga

March 25, 2024 (Toronto, ON) – A new Liaison Strategies poll for the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) finds Carolyn Parrish is still leading the race to become the next mayor of Mississauga but the race has narrowed.

Conducted from March 21-22, 2024, using interactive voice response technology, the poll surveyed 902 Mississauga residents. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.26%, 19 times out of 20. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC).

"A lot has changed since our last Mississauga poll in January," said David Valentin, principal at Liaison Strategies. "Carolyn Parrish has gone from an 11 point lead to a 5 point lead among decided voters, we've seen the entry into the race of Peter McCallion, and both Damerla and Tedjo have gone up in support."

"You can see from the all voters numbers that Parrish's support hasn't dropped, it was 18% among all voters in January and is 18% again now, but because less voters are undecided now her lead among decided voters has gotten smaller."

"Dipika Damerla continues in second place this month at 24% among decided voters while Alvin Tedjo's support has risen to 21% among decided voters.""The two sets of numbers all point us to the same thing: the largest group of voters are those that are currently undecided. 49% were undecided in January while 37% are undecided today."

"That being said, the most reliable group of voters are seniors, and among those over the age of 65, Parrish leads by 9 points over Damerla and only 26% of seniors are undecided."

"We asked Mississaugans to choose the most important issue facing the city and crime has come out on top with 30% choosing it as their top concern. Affordable housing (25%), traffic (16%), transit (9%) and inflation (9%) follow behind with only 3% citing homelessness as the top issue.""Older voters were more likely than younger ones to cite crime as their top issue. And while younger voters selected affordable housing as most important (32%), 27% of seniors said the same."

"The Mississauga race appears to be settling into a three way race between Parrish, Damerla and Tedjo - but with lots of time until election day and a significant number of voters still undecided, there is still lots of campaigning to go," concluded Valentin.

Among All Voters
18% - Carolyn Parrish (no change)
15% - Dipika Damerla (+3)
13% - Alvin Tedjo (+5)
6% - Peter McCallion (New Candidate)
5% - Stephen Dasko (+2)
4% - George Tavares (-1)
2% - David Shaw (no change)
37% Undecided (-12)

Decided Voters Only
29% - Carolyn Parrish
24% - Dipika Damerla
21% - Alvin Tedjo
10% - Peter McCallion
8% - Stephen Dasko
6% - George Tavares
3% - David Shaw

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