Toronto Poll: Chow 39%, Tory 35%

July 14, 2025 (Toronto, ON) – A new Liaison Strategies/NEPMCC poll for the Toronto Star shows Mayor Oliva Chow would win re-election comfortably if an election were held today - unless former Mayor John Tory entered the race.

Conducted from July 2-6, 2025, using interactive voice response technology, the poll surveyed 1,000 Torontonians. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.09%, 19 times out of 20. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC).

Liaison Strategies, a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), was the most accurate polling firm in the 2025 Ontario Provincial Election and the best overall polling firm of the 2025 Canadian Federal Election.

David Valentin, Principal at Liaison Strategies, said the following:

Two years ago today, Olivia Chow was sworn in as Mayor of Toronto, following the by-election triggered by John Tory’s resignation. We covered that race closely at the time, and since then, we’ve tracked her approval rating regularly through our monthly Toronto Omnibus survey and in polling released for our media partners.

As always, the trendline tells us more than any single data point. While Mayor Chow’s approval has declined steadily over the past few months, she still maintains more support than opposition - with 7% of Torontonians currently undecided on her performance.

Last year, we saw a bump in her numbers heading into the summer. That hasn’t materialized this time around.

This month, 51% of Torontonians say they approve of the job Mayor Chow is doing - but when we ask how they’d vote in a hypothetical rematch with John Tory, just 34% say they’d back her. Tory would trail narrowly, by 4 points, and while he’d bring his own baggage into any campaign, he remains a competitive force. Excluding undecided voters, Chow would sit at 39% and Tory at 35%.

Regionally, Chow performs best downtown and in North York, while Tory holds a strong lead in Etobicoke and is tied with Chow in Scarborough. Other contenders struggle to break through: Brad Bradford (7%), Ana Bailão (6%), Anthony Furey (5%), and Marco Mendicino (3%). In a Chow-Tory race, 12% of voters remain undecided.

But take Tory out of the equation, and the landscape shifts significantly.

Without Tory in the race, Chow’s support climbs by 7 points. His voters scatter: 20% move to Chow, while 27% go to Brad Bradford (17% go to Mr. Furey, 15% to Ms. Bailao and Mr. Mendicino picks up just 1% of Tory voters). Even so, Bradford still trails the mayor by 30 points among decided voters, 49% to 19%. Bailão follows with 13%, Furey at 12%, and Mendicino at 4%.

Bottom line: if John Tory stays out, Olivia Chow’s path to re-election becomes much smoother - especially if the field remains crowded and the vote stays split. Today, nearly half of decided voters say they’d vote for her.

But the election isn’t today.

John Tory has a decision to make. While he remains competitive and trails Mayor Chow by just 4 points, there are results in this survey that should give him pause, starting with his favourability numbers.

At first glance, Tory’s favourability appears strong, especially when compared to lesser-known rivals. Only 3 percent of voters say they are unfamiliar with him, which gives him a clear name recognition advantage. In contrast, 8 percent of voters say they do not recognize Ana Bailão, 26 percent say the same about Brad Bradford and Anthony Furey, and nearly half of voters, 46 percent, are unfamiliar with Marco Mendicino.

However, Tory’s high name recognition comes with a cost. His unfavourability sits at 39 percent, which is higher than any other potential candidate. By comparison, Ana Bailão’s unfavourability is 10 points lower, sitting at 29 percent.

The most concerning number for Tory is his standing with one of the most reliable voting groups in any municipal election: women over the age of 65. While he enjoys a net favourability of +51 among men over 65, his net rating among senior women is -39. This brings his overall net favourability with seniors down to just +3.

If the election were held today, Olivia Chow would be leading John Tory among senior voters by 5 points. That is a serious warning sign for any potential comeback.

Elsewhere in the survey:
- Approval of City Council is down 4% from 49% to 45% year over year
- Torontonians are split on whether the city is moving in the right direction (45%) vs the wrong direction (44%)
- The top issue for Torontonians used to be affordable housing but 31% are now telling us it's crime, launching crime into the top spot. Affordable housing (28%), Traffic (10%), Transit (10%) follow...
- When we ask Torontonians is it better to cup spending at City Hall or raise taxes, the support for cutting generic spending is now at 54% up from 45%
- Mayor Olivia Chow has taken a hit on most issue approval questions with her score on Transit taking the biggest hit dropping a net 23 points.
- Torontonians are more or less split on Chow's work on bike lanes (44% approve to 40% disapprove) but more strongly support her work on encampments (45% approve, 37% disapprove.
- Almost 1 in 2 Torontonians meanwhile (49%) disapprove of Doug Ford intervening in municipal affairs.

There's a lot in this survey... so we'll be holding a webinar in the coming days to dive into the results.

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Detailed Poll Report:

About Liaison Strategies
Liaison Strategies is a national public opinion research firm. With 12 years of experience in Canadian polling, David Valentin, principal, has fielded hundreds of projects at the municipal, provincial and federal levels and appeared across Canadian media to discuss insights. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), Canada’s voice of the research, analytics, and insights profession both domestically and globally.

About the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada
The National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and integrate economic, social and cultural interests of Ethnic communities into the mainstream of Canadian society. NEPMCC represents Canada’s Ethnic Press to the provincial and federal governments and is the major industry association for Canada’s non-official language newspapers, TV, radio and online outlets.