Bonnie Crombie is on solid footing in East-Cooksville, according to a new poll, with a Liberal edge in a pair of adjacent ridings. Sixteen ridings on the Liberals’ digital hit list. But before we dig in, another McCallion is speaking out and Patrick Brown's anti-Crombie push isn't cooling down.
96 hours post-Hazel McCallion's son's scathing rebuke of the Mississauga mayor-turned-Liberal leader, another McCallion is coming to Bonnie Crombie's defense.
On Saturday, Erika McCallion — the lone grandchild of the late mayor — weighed in, calling Crombie “the right leader to meet the challenges facing young people and families.”
“As a young person in Ontario and the only grandchild of Hazel McCallion, I am proud to be voting and campaigning for Bonnie Crombie…” she wrote in a statement.
“After my grandmother endorsed her as her successor, Bonnie led the City of Mississauga for nine years, steering it with vision and integrity… I know my grandmother would be proud of the vision we share for the future of Ontario.”
Crombie and McCallion Jr. go far back. She played a role in Crombie's run for mayor against Steve Mahoney, where she'd win the endorsement of the longest-serving mayor. She's now a regional lead and is running Crombie's local operation in Mississauga East-Cooksville.
“Somewhere along the way, Bonnie changed,” Peter McCallion wrote, slamming the Liberal leader as “consumed by power” and driven by “personal ambitions.” Before her passing, he said, his mother saw it too — telling him her endorsement of Crombie was “a mistake.”
One source brushed aside the spat: “Peter McCallion is not the force that is his mother,” said one senior Liberal. “He's just trading on her good name - and I don't think many people give much credence to him… He ran against Bonnie, didn't go anywhere. He has issues relating to his mom's endorsement of Bonnie — and that she didn’t endorse him.”
“None of this matters,” a second texted. “All of these people are over-estimating their impact.”
Over on X, Brampton's mayor had even more to say about Crombie:
“I could never understand why Bonnie was so nasty towards Hazel McCallion,” he wrote, alleging that Mississauga's former mayor tried to block the LRT from bearing McCallion's name. The line was ultimately named in her honour at the Ford government's direction.
“Disingenuous” is how one source described Brown's claim. Three sources disputed the allegation that Crombie tried to block the LRT from being named in McCallion's honour, while two pointed out that she and other city councillors only objected to calling it the “Hurricane Line” — arguing that younger generations wouldn’t grasp the reference and that it sounded more like a natural disaster — but not in the way Brown is spinning it.
Team Bonnie swung back at Brown. “When insecure men don't get what they want — they do shit like this,” her chief tweeted.
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SCOOP — Bonnie Crombie is on track to clinch her own seat — and her neighborhood clout is rippling into two neighboring ridings.
That's the upshot from new polling by Mainstreet Research, which found Crombie, Elizabeth Mendes and Alison Gohel riding high in Mississauga East-Cooksville, Mississauga-Lakeshore and Oakville.
In the high-density district, Crombie is up against Progressive Conservative candidate Silvia Gualtieri, the mother-in-law of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. Mendes and Gohel are taking on Rudy Cuzzetto and Stephen Crawford once again.
Each survey, provided exclusively to this newsletter, was conducted over the weekend via smart IVR. 584 adults, 18 years or older, in Oakville and 916 in Mississauga — 480 in Lakeshore and 436 in East-Cooksville — were polled. The margin of error for each poll is +/- 4.1, 4.5 and 4.7 per cent, respectively.
By the numbers:
— In East-Cooksville, Crombie's got a strong grip with a 15-point lead. Among all voters, 48 per cent would vote for the Liberal leader over Gualtieri at 33 per cent. The NDP — which pulled almost 11 per cent of the vote last time — has collapsed, placing third with 6 per cent. Another 6 are undecided, while 4 per cent picked someone else.
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Decided and leaning voters are breaking Gualtieri's way. She gained 3 per cent, with Crombie stagnant.
Among decided voters only, 50 per cent picked Crombie, with Gualtieri trailing at 37 per cent.
— Heading southwest, Mendes has a solid but not insurmountable lead. Among all surveyed voters, Mendes earned 45 per cent support, with a 7-point lead over Cuzzetto at 37 per cent.
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The undecideds are breaking proportionally rather than swinging heavily in one direction. 46 per cent of decided and leaning voters picked Mendes, while 38 per cent picked Cuzzetto. That support level held steady among decided voters only.
Mendes has leaned into Crombie's brand — and since January, has been running a local ad starring the Liberal leader. “Taking over from Hazel McCallion and fighting for Mississauga as your mayor was the honour of a lifetime,” she said. Watch here.
Crombie's name recognition is giving her and Mendes a leg up — but is that momentum extending past Mississauga? Oakville, just west of East-Cooksville, will test the GTA-wide pull of the former mayor.
— Gohel is up but not by much. She earned 42 per cent support, with a 6-point lead over Crawford at 36 per cent.
-3.png)
The gap is much slimmer among leaning and decided voters. Crawford is back by 3 points at 41 per cent to Gohel's 44 per cent. Among decided voters alone, it's dead heat — 46 per cent for Gohel to 43 per cent for Crawford.
In 2022, Crawford beat Gohel, winning 43 per cent to her 37.5 per cent.
With just days to go, both the riding-level polls and the three-day rolling average tell a consistent story, says Quito Maggi, CEO of Mainstreet Research, pointing to a Progressive Conservative majority, with the Liberals in second place.
“The Liberals lead consistently higher among female voters and those over 65, while the Progressive Conservatives lead among men and those with secondary and college education,” he said. “This is consistent with what we have been seeing at the province-wide level — and it points to gains for Liberals.”
The outcome will ultimately hinge on turnout. “The organizational advantages of the Tory candidates cannot be ignored,” Maggi warned.
Here's the catch: “Riding polls are notoriously challenging, and with the higher margins of error, there are also other possible sources of error, such as coverage error,” he noted. “We caution readers and observers to carefully review the weighted and unweighted tables.”
We’re teaming up with Mainstreet Research to zero in on where this election could be won or lost. Can Sarah Jama score a Bobbi Ann Brady-style win in Hamilton Centre? Did Natasha Doyle-Merrick's last-minute decision to pull out help Vince Gasparro in Eglinton-Lawrence? Stay tuned.
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— SCOOP — Ad watch: The Liberal war room is targeting ads in several key ridings, according to Meta's disclosure.
While some candidates are keeping their ad spend local, the party is zeroing in on targeted ad buys in a total of sixteen ridings, including Crombie's, spending between $2,000 and $2,500 each. They are:
The ad spend signals the Crombie campaign's assessment of their chances in these ridings. Some ridings are seen as winnable, while others, held by Liberal incumbents, are under threat.
“Some of them make sense,” texted a Liberal. “Why they would spend a dime of money on Willowdale, Thunder Bay, Brampton, Spadina-Fort York, Nepean or Glengarry is beyond me.”
— A Green candidate in Waterloo is endorsing her rival. “If you really like the Green movement, send me a message, tell me I'm doing great, tell me I can earn your vote for next time, but this time, vote Catherine Fife, vote NDP,” Shefaza Esmail told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.
— A hint that turnout might lag on Thursday: Six per cent of eligible voters voted early, down from the 9.92 per cent who voted over the ten-day period last time. In 2018, 6.8 per cent cast their ballot over five days of voting.
— A small snag for Patrick Brown's mother-in-law over the weekend: Some of her campaign literature included a misspelling — “Sylvia” not “Silvia” — of her own name.
Some of Crombie's ex-council colleagues were out campaigning for the Tories, including Brad Butt, who joined Gualtieri and Nina Tangri earlier this month. Photo. Photo.
Crombie, meanwhile, was on the receiving end of some heckling from an anti-vaxxer at a local skate. It was hosted by councillor Joe Horneck, who added his name to the six endorsements for the Liberal leader on Saturday.
Add to the list: School board trustee Lucas Alves, who was seeking the nomination in her own riding before she picked it, as we previously reported.
— Over in Lakeshore, add another Progressive Conservative to the list of debate-goers: At the eleventh-hour, Rudy Cuzzetto agreed to join an all-candidates meeting hosted by a group of residents' associations on Friday.
The Tories’ local riding association took a jab at the Liberal leader, who can't vote for herself — she doesn’t live in the riding.
— Stephen Lecce, Prabmeet Sarkaria and David Piccini joined Silvia Gualtieri at a $1000-a-ticket fundraiser in the riding. Peter McCallion also showed up.
— The NDP is out with a new ad: “Hope,” shot at Marit Stiles' high-energy Toronto rally last week.
— The Tories are also out with a new spot. “This election is about who we are and what we stand for,” Doug Ford said.
(We're told the ad was recorded at the Albany Club and produced by Creative Currency, the ad shop with a hand in the “Queen of the Carbon Tax” campaign).
— Maggi and Kouvalis are still at it. The brawl carried straight through the weekend.
— Lisa Gretzky, Wayne's cousin-in-law, throwing shade — with a side of patriotism.
— A new Liaison poll found the Tories with a 10-point lead over the Liberals, 42 per cent to 32 per cent. The NDP is trailing at 18 per cent. Here's the full report.
— Martin Regg Cohn sized up three leaders in new biogs: Is Bonnie Crombie gaining traction? For Marit Stiles, enthusiasm is high — but recognition is low. Doug Ford's biggest trick? Making trouble disappear.
— Barbara Patrocinio and Marco Vigliotti dish the dirt on “internal disorganization, public gaffes and poor vetting of candidates” spooking Crombie's campaign team.
— Here's a deep dive into the Progressive Conservatives' campaign platform.
— Will Bonnie Crombie's progressive gambit work? John Michael McGrath is on it.
— ER wait times are only getting longer.
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Thank you for reading POLICORNER. Got a tip? Campaign dirt? War room whispers? Are you Bonnie Crombie or Marit Stiles? Will you be staying as leader if Thursday's result is a dud? Hit me up and you’ll stay anonymous.
Have a brand or message? Looking to grab the attention of the province’s top and most powerful political players? Ad space is available — reach out for our rate card.
Bonnie Crombie is on solid footing in East-Cooksville, according to a new poll, with a Liberal edge in a pair of adjacent ridings. Sixteen ridings on the Liberals’ digital hit list. But before we dig in, another McCallion is speaking out and Patrick Brown's anti-Crombie push isn't cooling down.
96 hours post-Hazel McCallion's son's scathing rebuke of the Mississauga mayor-turned-Liberal leader, another McCallion is coming to Bonnie Crombie's defense.
On Saturday, Erika McCallion — the lone grandchild of the late mayor — weighed in, calling Crombie “the right leader to meet the challenges facing young people and families.”
“As a young person in Ontario and the only grandchild of Hazel McCallion, I am proud to be voting and campaigning for Bonnie Crombie…” she wrote in a statement.
“After my grandmother endorsed her as her successor, Bonnie led the City of Mississauga for nine years, steering it with vision and integrity… I know my grandmother would be proud of the vision we share for the future of Ontario.”
Crombie and McCallion Jr. go far back. She played a role in Crombie's run for mayor against Steve Mahoney, where she'd win the endorsement of the longest-serving mayor. She's now a regional lead and is running Crombie's local operation in Mississauga East-Cooksville.
“Somewhere along the way, Bonnie changed,” Peter McCallion wrote, slamming the Liberal leader as “consumed by power” and driven by “personal ambitions.” Before her passing, he said, his mother saw it too — telling him her endorsement of Crombie was “a mistake.”
One source brushed aside the spat: “Peter McCallion is not the force that is his mother,” said one senior Liberal. “He's just trading on her good name - and I don't think many people give much credence to him… He ran against Bonnie, didn't go anywhere. He has issues relating to his mom's endorsement of Bonnie — and that she didn’t endorse him.”
“None of this matters,” a second texted. “All of these people are over-estimating their impact.”
Over on X, Brampton's mayor had even more to say about Crombie:
“I could never understand why Bonnie was so nasty towards Hazel McCallion,” he wrote, alleging that Mississauga's former mayor tried to block the LRT from bearing McCallion's name. The line was ultimately named in her honour at the Ford government's direction.
“Disingenuous” is how one source described Brown's claim. Three sources disputed the allegation that Crombie tried to block the LRT from being named in McCallion's honour, while two pointed out that she and other city councillors only objected to calling it the “Hurricane Line” — arguing that younger generations wouldn’t grasp the reference and that it sounded more like a natural disaster — but not in the way Brown is spinning it.
Team Bonnie swung back at Brown. “When insecure men don't get what they want — they do shit like this,” her chief tweeted.
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SCOOP — Bonnie Crombie is on track to clinch her own seat — and her neighborhood clout is rippling into two neighboring ridings.
That's the upshot from new polling by Mainstreet Research, which found Crombie, Elizabeth Mendes and Alison Gohel riding high in Mississauga East-Cooksville, Mississauga-Lakeshore and Oakville.
In the high-density district, Crombie is up against Progressive Conservative candidate Silvia Gualtieri, the mother-in-law of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. Mendes and Gohel are taking on Rudy Cuzzetto and Stephen Crawford once again.
Each survey, provided exclusively to this newsletter, was conducted over the weekend via smart IVR. 584 adults, 18 years or older, in Oakville and 916 in Mississauga — 480 in Lakeshore and 436 in East-Cooksville — were polled. The margin of error for each poll is +/- 4.1, 4.5 and 4.7 per cent, respectively.
By the numbers:
— In East-Cooksville, Crombie's got a strong grip with a 15-point lead. Among all voters, 48 per cent would vote for the Liberal leader over Gualtieri at 33 per cent. The NDP — which pulled almost 11 per cent of the vote last time — has collapsed, placing third with 6 per cent. Another 6 are undecided, while 4 per cent picked someone else.
Decided and leaning voters are breaking Gualtieri's way. She gained 3 per cent, with Crombie stagnant.
Among decided voters only, 50 per cent picked Crombie, with Gualtieri trailing at 37 per cent.
— Heading southwest, Mendes has a solid but not insurmountable lead. Among all surveyed voters, Mendes earned 45 per cent support, with a 7-point lead over Cuzzetto at 37 per cent.
The undecideds are breaking proportionally rather than swinging heavily in one direction. 46 per cent of decided and leaning voters picked Mendes, while 38 per cent picked Cuzzetto. That support level held steady among decided voters only.
Mendes has leaned into Crombie's brand — and since January, has been running a local ad starring the Liberal leader. “Taking over from Hazel McCallion and fighting for Mississauga as your mayor was the honour of a lifetime,” she said. Watch here.
Crombie's name recognition is giving her and Mendes a leg up — but is that momentum extending past Mississauga? Oakville, just west of East-Cooksville, will test the GTA-wide pull of the former mayor.
— Gohel is up but not by much. She earned 42 per cent support, with a 6-point lead over Crawford at 36 per cent.
The gap is much slimmer among leaning and decided voters. Crawford is back by 3 points at 41 per cent to Gohel's 44 per cent. Among decided voters alone, it's dead heat — 46 per cent for Gohel to 43 per cent for Crawford.
In 2022, Crawford beat Gohel, winning 43 per cent to her 37.5 per cent.
With just days to go, both the riding-level polls and the three-day rolling average tell a consistent story, says Quito Maggi, CEO of Mainstreet Research, pointing to a Progressive Conservative majority, with the Liberals in second place.
“The Liberals lead consistently higher among female voters and those over 65, while the Progressive Conservatives lead among men and those with secondary and college education,” he said. “This is consistent with what we have been seeing at the province-wide level — and it points to gains for Liberals.”
The outcome will ultimately hinge on turnout. “The organizational advantages of the Tory candidates cannot be ignored,” Maggi warned.
Here's the catch: “Riding polls are notoriously challenging, and with the higher margins of error, there are also other possible sources of error, such as coverage error,” he noted. “We caution readers and observers to carefully review the weighted and unweighted tables.”
We’re teaming up with Mainstreet Research to zero in on where this election could be won or lost. Can Sarah Jama score a Bobbi Ann Brady-style win in Hamilton Centre? Did Natasha Doyle-Merrick's last-minute decision to pull out help Vince Gasparro in Eglinton-Lawrence? Stay tuned.
{{LINE}}
— SCOOP — Ad watch: The Liberal war room is targeting ads in several key ridings, according to Meta's disclosure.
While some candidates are keeping their ad spend local, the party is zeroing in on targeted ad buys in a total of sixteen ridings, including Crombie's, spending between $2,000 and $2,500 each. They are:
The ad spend signals the Crombie campaign's assessment of their chances in these ridings. Some ridings are seen as winnable, while others, held by Liberal incumbents, are under threat.
“Some of them make sense,” texted a Liberal. “Why they would spend a dime of money on Willowdale, Thunder Bay, Brampton, Spadina-Fort York, Nepean or Glengarry is beyond me.”
— A Green candidate in Waterloo is endorsing her rival. “If you really like the Green movement, send me a message, tell me I'm doing great, tell me I can earn your vote for next time, but this time, vote Catherine Fife, vote NDP,” Shefaza Esmail told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.
— A hint that turnout might lag on Thursday: Six per cent of eligible voters voted early, down from the 9.92 per cent who voted over the ten-day period last time. In 2018, 6.8 per cent cast their ballot over five days of voting.
— A small snag for Patrick Brown's mother-in-law over the weekend: Some of her campaign literature included a misspelling — “Sylvia” not “Silvia” — of her own name.
Some of Crombie's ex-council colleagues were out campaigning for the Tories, including Brad Butt, who joined Gualtieri and Nina Tangri earlier this month. Photo. Photo.
Crombie, meanwhile, was on the receiving end of some heckling from an anti-vaxxer at a local skate. It was hosted by councillor Joe Horneck, who added his name to the six endorsements for the Liberal leader on Saturday.
Add to the list: School board trustee Lucas Alves, who was seeking the nomination in her own riding before she picked it, as we previously reported.
— Over in Lakeshore, add another Progressive Conservative to the list of debate-goers: At the eleventh-hour, Rudy Cuzzetto agreed to join an all-candidates meeting hosted by a group of residents' associations on Friday.
The Tories’ local riding association took a jab at the Liberal leader, who can't vote for herself — she doesn’t live in the riding.
— Stephen Lecce, Prabmeet Sarkaria and David Piccini joined Silvia Gualtieri at a $1000-a-ticket fundraiser in the riding. Peter McCallion also showed up.
— The NDP is out with a new ad: “Hope,” shot at Marit Stiles' high-energy Toronto rally last week.
— The Tories are also out with a new spot. “This election is about who we are and what we stand for,” Doug Ford said.
(We're told the ad was recorded at the Albany Club and produced by Creative Currency, the ad shop with a hand in the “Queen of the Carbon Tax” campaign).
— Maggi and Kouvalis are still at it. The brawl carried straight through the weekend.
— Lisa Gretzky, Wayne's cousin-in-law, throwing shade — with a side of patriotism.
— A new Liaison poll found the Tories with a 10-point lead over the Liberals, 42 per cent to 32 per cent. The NDP is trailing at 18 per cent. Here's the full report.
— Martin Regg Cohn sized up three leaders in new biogs: Is Bonnie Crombie gaining traction? For Marit Stiles, enthusiasm is high — but recognition is low. Doug Ford's biggest trick? Making trouble disappear.
— Barbara Patrocinio and Marco Vigliotti dish the dirt on “internal disorganization, public gaffes and poor vetting of candidates” spooking Crombie's campaign team.
— Here's a deep dive into the Progressive Conservatives' campaign platform.
— Will Bonnie Crombie's progressive gambit work? John Michael McGrath is on it.
— ER wait times are only getting longer.
{{LINE}}
Thank you for reading POLICORNER. Got a tip? Campaign dirt? War room whispers? Are you Bonnie Crombie or Marit Stiles? Will you be staying as leader if Thursday's result is a dud? Hit me up and you’ll stay anonymous.
Have a brand or message? Looking to grab the attention of the province’s top and most powerful political players? Ad space is available — reach out for our rate card.
Bonnie Crombie is on solid footing in East-Cooksville, according to a new poll, with a Liberal edge in a pair of adjacent ridings. Sixteen ridings on the Liberals’ digital hit list. But before we dig in, another McCallion is speaking out and Patrick Brown's anti-Crombie push isn't cooling down.
96 hours post-Hazel McCallion's son's scathing rebuke of the Mississauga mayor-turned-Liberal leader, another McCallion is coming to Bonnie Crombie's defense.
On Saturday, Erika McCallion — the lone grandchild of the late mayor — weighed in, calling Crombie “the right leader to meet the challenges facing young people and families.”
“As a young person in Ontario and the only grandchild of Hazel McCallion, I am proud to be voting and campaigning for Bonnie Crombie…” she wrote in a statement.
“After my grandmother endorsed her as her successor, Bonnie led the City of Mississauga for nine years, steering it with vision and integrity… I know my grandmother would be proud of the vision we share for the future of Ontario.”
Crombie and McCallion Jr. go far back. She played a role in Crombie's run for mayor against Steve Mahoney, where she'd win the endorsement of the longest-serving mayor. She's now a regional lead and is running Crombie's local operation in Mississauga East-Cooksville.
“Somewhere along the way, Bonnie changed,” Peter McCallion wrote, slamming the Liberal leader as “consumed by power” and driven by “personal ambitions.” Before her passing, he said, his mother saw it too — telling him her endorsement of Crombie was “a mistake.”
One source brushed aside the spat: “Peter McCallion is not the force that is his mother,” said one senior Liberal. “He's just trading on her good name - and I don't think many people give much credence to him… He ran against Bonnie, didn't go anywhere. He has issues relating to his mom's endorsement of Bonnie — and that she didn’t endorse him.”
“None of this matters,” a second texted. “All of these people are over-estimating their impact.”
Over on X, Brampton's mayor had even more to say about Crombie:
“I could never understand why Bonnie was so nasty towards Hazel McCallion,” he wrote, alleging that Mississauga's former mayor tried to block the LRT from bearing McCallion's name. The line was ultimately named in her honour at the Ford government's direction.
“Disingenuous” is how one source described Brown's claim. Three sources disputed the allegation that Crombie tried to block the LRT from being named in McCallion's honour, while two pointed out that she and other city councillors only objected to calling it the “Hurricane Line” — arguing that younger generations wouldn’t grasp the reference and that it sounded more like a natural disaster — but not in the way Brown is spinning it.
Team Bonnie swung back at Brown. “When insecure men don't get what they want — they do shit like this,” her chief tweeted.
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SCOOP — Bonnie Crombie is on track to clinch her own seat — and her neighborhood clout is rippling into two neighboring ridings.
That's the upshot from new polling by Mainstreet Research, which found Crombie, Elizabeth Mendes and Alison Gohel riding high in Mississauga East-Cooksville, Mississauga-Lakeshore and Oakville.
In the high-density district, Crombie is up against Progressive Conservative candidate Silvia Gualtieri, the mother-in-law of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. Mendes and Gohel are taking on Rudy Cuzzetto and Stephen Crawford once again.
Each survey, provided exclusively to this newsletter, was conducted over the weekend via smart IVR. 584 adults, 18 years or older, in Oakville and 916 in Mississauga — 480 in Lakeshore and 436 in East-Cooksville — were polled. The margin of error for each poll is +/- 4.1, 4.5 and 4.7 per cent, respectively.
By the numbers:
— In East-Cooksville, Crombie's got a strong grip with a 15-point lead. Among all voters, 48 per cent would vote for the Liberal leader over Gualtieri at 33 per cent. The NDP — which pulled almost 11 per cent of the vote last time — has collapsed, placing third with 6 per cent. Another 6 are undecided, while 4 per cent picked someone else.
Decided and leaning voters are breaking Gualtieri's way. She gained 3 per cent, with Crombie stagnant.
Among decided voters only, 50 per cent picked Crombie, with Gualtieri trailing at 37 per cent.
— Heading southwest, Mendes has a solid but not insurmountable lead. Among all surveyed voters, Mendes earned 45 per cent support, with a 7-point lead over Cuzzetto at 37 per cent.
The undecideds are breaking proportionally rather than swinging heavily in one direction. 46 per cent of decided and leaning voters picked Mendes, while 38 per cent picked Cuzzetto. That support level held steady among decided voters only.
Mendes has leaned into Crombie's brand — and since January, has been running a local ad starring the Liberal leader. “Taking over from Hazel McCallion and fighting for Mississauga as your mayor was the honour of a lifetime,” she said. Watch here.
Crombie's name recognition is giving her and Mendes a leg up — but is that momentum extending past Mississauga? Oakville, just west of East-Cooksville, will test the GTA-wide pull of the former mayor.
— Gohel is up but not by much. She earned 42 per cent support, with a 6-point lead over Crawford at 36 per cent.
The gap is much slimmer among leaning and decided voters. Crawford is back by 3 points at 41 per cent to Gohel's 44 per cent. Among decided voters alone, it's dead heat — 46 per cent for Gohel to 43 per cent for Crawford.
In 2022, Crawford beat Gohel, winning 43 per cent to her 37.5 per cent.
With just days to go, both the riding-level polls and the three-day rolling average tell a consistent story, says Quito Maggi, CEO of Mainstreet Research, pointing to a Progressive Conservative majority, with the Liberals in second place.
“The Liberals lead consistently higher among female voters and those over 65, while the Progressive Conservatives lead among men and those with secondary and college education,” he said. “This is consistent with what we have been seeing at the province-wide level — and it points to gains for Liberals.”
The outcome will ultimately hinge on turnout. “The organizational advantages of the Tory candidates cannot be ignored,” Maggi warned.
Here's the catch: “Riding polls are notoriously challenging, and with the higher margins of error, there are also other possible sources of error, such as coverage error,” he noted. “We caution readers and observers to carefully review the weighted and unweighted tables.”
We’re teaming up with Mainstreet Research to zero in on where this election could be won or lost. Can Sarah Jama score a Bobbi Ann Brady-style win in Hamilton Centre? Did Natasha Doyle-Merrick's last-minute decision to pull out help Vince Gasparro in Eglinton-Lawrence? Stay tuned.
{{LINE}}
— SCOOP — Ad watch: The Liberal war room is targeting ads in several key ridings, according to Meta's disclosure.
While some candidates are keeping their ad spend local, the party is zeroing in on targeted ad buys in a total of sixteen ridings, including Crombie's, spending between $2,000 and $2,500 each. They are:
The ad spend signals the Crombie campaign's assessment of their chances in these ridings. Some ridings are seen as winnable, while others, held by Liberal incumbents, are under threat.
“Some of them make sense,” texted a Liberal. “Why they would spend a dime of money on Willowdale, Thunder Bay, Brampton, Spadina-Fort York, Nepean or Glengarry is beyond me.”
— A Green candidate in Waterloo is endorsing her rival. “If you really like the Green movement, send me a message, tell me I'm doing great, tell me I can earn your vote for next time, but this time, vote Catherine Fife, vote NDP,” Shefaza Esmail told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.
— A hint that turnout might lag on Thursday: Six per cent of eligible voters voted early, down from the 9.92 per cent who voted over the ten-day period last time. In 2018, 6.8 per cent cast their ballot over five days of voting.
— A small snag for Patrick Brown's mother-in-law over the weekend: Some of her campaign literature included a misspelling — “Sylvia” not “Silvia” — of her own name.
Some of Crombie's ex-council colleagues were out campaigning for the Tories, including Brad Butt, who joined Gualtieri and Nina Tangri earlier this month. Photo. Photo.
Crombie, meanwhile, was on the receiving end of some heckling from an anti-vaxxer at a local skate. It was hosted by councillor Joe Horneck, who added his name to the six endorsements for the Liberal leader on Saturday.
Add to the list: School board trustee Lucas Alves, who was seeking the nomination in her own riding before she picked it, as we previously reported.
— Over in Lakeshore, add another Progressive Conservative to the list of debate-goers: At the eleventh-hour, Rudy Cuzzetto agreed to join an all-candidates meeting hosted by a group of residents' associations on Friday.
The Tories’ local riding association took a jab at the Liberal leader, who can't vote for herself — she doesn’t live in the riding.
— Stephen Lecce, Prabmeet Sarkaria and David Piccini joined Silvia Gualtieri at a $1000-a-ticket fundraiser in the riding. Peter McCallion also showed up.
— The NDP is out with a new ad: “Hope,” shot at Marit Stiles' high-energy Toronto rally last week.
— The Tories are also out with a new spot. “This election is about who we are and what we stand for,” Doug Ford said.
(We're told the ad was recorded at the Albany Club and produced by Creative Currency, the ad shop with a hand in the “Queen of the Carbon Tax” campaign).
— Maggi and Kouvalis are still at it. The brawl carried straight through the weekend.
— Lisa Gretzky, Wayne's cousin-in-law, throwing shade — with a side of patriotism.
— A new Liaison poll found the Tories with a 10-point lead over the Liberals, 42 per cent to 32 per cent. The NDP is trailing at 18 per cent. Here's the full report.
— Martin Regg Cohn sized up three leaders in new biogs: Is Bonnie Crombie gaining traction? For Marit Stiles, enthusiasm is high — but recognition is low. Doug Ford's biggest trick? Making trouble disappear.
— Barbara Patrocinio and Marco Vigliotti dish the dirt on “internal disorganization, public gaffes and poor vetting of candidates” spooking Crombie's campaign team.
— Here's a deep dive into the Progressive Conservatives' campaign platform.
— Will Bonnie Crombie's progressive gambit work? John Michael McGrath is on it.
— ER wait times are only getting longer.
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Bonnie Crombie is on solid footing in East-Cooksville, according to a new poll, with a Liberal edge in a pair of adjacent ridings. Sixteen ridings on the Liberals’ digital hit list. But before we dig in, another McCallion is speaking out and Patrick Brown's anti-Crombie push isn't cooling down.
96 hours post-Hazel McCallion's son's scathing rebuke of the Mississauga mayor-turned-Liberal leader, another McCallion is coming to Bonnie Crombie's defense.
On Saturday, Erika McCallion — the lone grandchild of the late mayor — weighed in, calling Crombie “the right leader to meet the challenges facing young people and families.”
“As a young person in Ontario and the only grandchild of Hazel McCallion, I am proud to be voting and campaigning for Bonnie Crombie…” she wrote in a statement.
“After my grandmother endorsed her as her successor, Bonnie led the City of Mississauga for nine years, steering it with vision and integrity… I know my grandmother would be proud of the vision we share for the future of Ontario.”
Crombie and McCallion Jr. go far back. She played a role in Crombie's run for mayor against Steve Mahoney, where she'd win the endorsement of the longest-serving mayor. She's now a regional lead and is running Crombie's local operation in Mississauga East-Cooksville.
“Somewhere along the way, Bonnie changed,” Peter McCallion wrote, slamming the Liberal leader as “consumed by power” and driven by “personal ambitions.” Before her passing, he said, his mother saw it too — telling him her endorsement of Crombie was “a mistake.”
One source brushed aside the spat: “Peter McCallion is not the force that is his mother,” said one senior Liberal. “He's just trading on her good name - and I don't think many people give much credence to him… He ran against Bonnie, didn't go anywhere. He has issues relating to his mom's endorsement of Bonnie — and that she didn’t endorse him.”
“None of this matters,” a second texted. “All of these people are over-estimating their impact.”
Over on X, Brampton's mayor had even more to say about Crombie:
“I could never understand why Bonnie was so nasty towards Hazel McCallion,” he wrote, alleging that Mississauga's former mayor tried to block the LRT from bearing McCallion's name. The line was ultimately named in her honour at the Ford government's direction.
“Disingenuous” is how one source described Brown's claim. Three sources disputed the allegation that Crombie tried to block the LRT from being named in McCallion's honour, while two pointed out that she and other city councillors only objected to calling it the “Hurricane Line” — arguing that younger generations wouldn’t grasp the reference and that it sounded more like a natural disaster — but not in the way Brown is spinning it.
Team Bonnie swung back at Brown. “When insecure men don't get what they want — they do shit like this,” her chief tweeted.
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SCOOP — Bonnie Crombie is on track to clinch her own seat — and her neighborhood clout is rippling into two neighboring ridings.
That's the upshot from new polling by Mainstreet Research, which found Crombie, Elizabeth Mendes and Alison Gohel riding high in Mississauga East-Cooksville, Mississauga-Lakeshore and Oakville.
In the high-density district, Crombie is up against Progressive Conservative candidate Silvia Gualtieri, the mother-in-law of Brampton mayor Patrick Brown. Mendes and Gohel are taking on Rudy Cuzzetto and Stephen Crawford once again.
Each survey, provided exclusively to this newsletter, was conducted over the weekend via smart IVR. 584 adults, 18 years or older, in Oakville and 916 in Mississauga — 480 in Lakeshore and 436 in East-Cooksville — were polled. The margin of error for each poll is +/- 4.1, 4.5 and 4.7 per cent, respectively.
By the numbers:
— In East-Cooksville, Crombie's got a strong grip with a 15-point lead. Among all voters, 48 per cent would vote for the Liberal leader over Gualtieri at 33 per cent. The NDP — which pulled almost 11 per cent of the vote last time — has collapsed, placing third with 6 per cent. Another 6 are undecided, while 4 per cent picked someone else.
Decided and leaning voters are breaking Gualtieri's way. She gained 3 per cent, with Crombie stagnant.
Among decided voters only, 50 per cent picked Crombie, with Gualtieri trailing at 37 per cent.
— Heading southwest, Mendes has a solid but not insurmountable lead. Among all surveyed voters, Mendes earned 45 per cent support, with a 7-point lead over Cuzzetto at 37 per cent.
The undecideds are breaking proportionally rather than swinging heavily in one direction. 46 per cent of decided and leaning voters picked Mendes, while 38 per cent picked Cuzzetto. That support level held steady among decided voters only.
Mendes has leaned into Crombie's brand — and since January, has been running a local ad starring the Liberal leader. “Taking over from Hazel McCallion and fighting for Mississauga as your mayor was the honour of a lifetime,” she said. Watch here.
Crombie's name recognition is giving her and Mendes a leg up — but is that momentum extending past Mississauga? Oakville, just west of East-Cooksville, will test the GTA-wide pull of the former mayor.
— Gohel is up but not by much. She earned 42 per cent support, with a 6-point lead over Crawford at 36 per cent.
The gap is much slimmer among leaning and decided voters. Crawford is back by 3 points at 41 per cent to Gohel's 44 per cent. Among decided voters alone, it's dead heat — 46 per cent for Gohel to 43 per cent for Crawford.
In 2022, Crawford beat Gohel, winning 43 per cent to her 37.5 per cent.
With just days to go, both the riding-level polls and the three-day rolling average tell a consistent story, says Quito Maggi, CEO of Mainstreet Research, pointing to a Progressive Conservative majority, with the Liberals in second place.
“The Liberals lead consistently higher among female voters and those over 65, while the Progressive Conservatives lead among men and those with secondary and college education,” he said. “This is consistent with what we have been seeing at the province-wide level — and it points to gains for Liberals.”
The outcome will ultimately hinge on turnout. “The organizational advantages of the Tory candidates cannot be ignored,” Maggi warned.
Here's the catch: “Riding polls are notoriously challenging, and with the higher margins of error, there are also other possible sources of error, such as coverage error,” he noted. “We caution readers and observers to carefully review the weighted and unweighted tables.”
We’re teaming up with Mainstreet Research to zero in on where this election could be won or lost. Can Sarah Jama score a Bobbi Ann Brady-style win in Hamilton Centre? Did Natasha Doyle-Merrick's last-minute decision to pull out help Vince Gasparro in Eglinton-Lawrence? Stay tuned.
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— SCOOP — Ad watch: The Liberal war room is targeting ads in several key ridings, according to Meta's disclosure.
While some candidates are keeping their ad spend local, the party is zeroing in on targeted ad buys in a total of sixteen ridings, including Crombie's, spending between $2,000 and $2,500 each. They are:
The ad spend signals the Crombie campaign's assessment of their chances in these ridings. Some ridings are seen as winnable, while others, held by Liberal incumbents, are under threat.
“Some of them make sense,” texted a Liberal. “Why they would spend a dime of money on Willowdale, Thunder Bay, Brampton, Spadina-Fort York, Nepean or Glengarry is beyond me.”
— A Green candidate in Waterloo is endorsing her rival. “If you really like the Green movement, send me a message, tell me I'm doing great, tell me I can earn your vote for next time, but this time, vote Catherine Fife, vote NDP,” Shefaza Esmail told CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.
— A hint that turnout might lag on Thursday: Six per cent of eligible voters voted early, down from the 9.92 per cent who voted over the ten-day period last time. In 2018, 6.8 per cent cast their ballot over five days of voting.
— A small snag for Patrick Brown's mother-in-law over the weekend: Some of her campaign literature included a misspelling — “Sylvia” not “Silvia” — of her own name.
Some of Crombie's ex-council colleagues were out campaigning for the Tories, including Brad Butt, who joined Gualtieri and Nina Tangri earlier this month. Photo. Photo.
Crombie, meanwhile, was on the receiving end of some heckling from an anti-vaxxer at a local skate. It was hosted by councillor Joe Horneck, who added his name to the six endorsements for the Liberal leader on Saturday.
Add to the list: School board trustee Lucas Alves, who was seeking the nomination in her own riding before she picked it, as we previously reported.
— Over in Lakeshore, add another Progressive Conservative to the list of debate-goers: At the eleventh-hour, Rudy Cuzzetto agreed to join an all-candidates meeting hosted by a group of residents' associations on Friday.
The Tories’ local riding association took a jab at the Liberal leader, who can't vote for herself — she doesn’t live in the riding.
— Stephen Lecce, Prabmeet Sarkaria and David Piccini joined Silvia Gualtieri at a $1000-a-ticket fundraiser in the riding. Peter McCallion also showed up.
— The NDP is out with a new ad: “Hope,” shot at Marit Stiles' high-energy Toronto rally last week.
— The Tories are also out with a new spot. “This election is about who we are and what we stand for,” Doug Ford said.
(We're told the ad was recorded at the Albany Club and produced by Creative Currency, the ad shop with a hand in the “Queen of the Carbon Tax” campaign).
— Maggi and Kouvalis are still at it. The brawl carried straight through the weekend.
— Lisa Gretzky, Wayne's cousin-in-law, throwing shade — with a side of patriotism.
— A new Liaison poll found the Tories with a 10-point lead over the Liberals, 42 per cent to 32 per cent. The NDP is trailing at 18 per cent. Here's the full report.
— Martin Regg Cohn sized up three leaders in new biogs: Is Bonnie Crombie gaining traction? For Marit Stiles, enthusiasm is high — but recognition is low. Doug Ford's biggest trick? Making trouble disappear.
— Barbara Patrocinio and Marco Vigliotti dish the dirt on “internal disorganization, public gaffes and poor vetting of candidates” spooking Crombie's campaign team.
— Here's a deep dive into the Progressive Conservatives' campaign platform.
— Will Bonnie Crombie's progressive gambit work? John Michael McGrath is on it.
— ER wait times are only getting longer.
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Thank you for reading POLICORNER. Got a tip? Campaign dirt? War room whispers? Are you Bonnie Crombie or Marit Stiles? Will you be staying as leader if Thursday's result is a dud? Hit me up and you’ll stay anonymous.
Have a brand or message? Looking to grab the attention of the province’s top and most powerful political players? Ad space is available — reach out for our rate card.