A new poll suggests Judy Wasylycia-Leis has a commanding lead in the race to become Winnipeg’s next mayor. The CTV Winnipeg/Winnipeg Free Press survey conducted by Probe Research Inc. indicates she has the lead among decided voters in all areas of the city.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s in the suburbs or in the inner city, she does seem to have a fair amount of support,” said Curtis Brown of Probe Research.

According to the poll, the former NDP MP and MLA has the support of 41 per cent of decided voters in Winnipeg. In second place, lawyer Brian Bowman has 23 per cent, while former city councillor Gord Steeves is a distant third at 16 per cent.

Brown says Bowman and Steeves have split the support of right-wing voters, to the benefit of the left-leaning Wasylycia-Leis. “You can really see that having more ‘right-of-centre’ candidates has really positioned her in a place where she probably will win,” he said.

Support numbers for the remaining candidates are all in the single-digits. Robert-Falcon Ouellette has nine per cent, David Sanders has five per cent, Paula Havixbeck has four per cent, and Michel Fillion has 2 per cent.

Probe interviewed a random sample of 602 adults via telephone between Sept. 18 and Oct. 1. The results are considered accurate to within plus or minus four percentage points, with a 95 per cent confidence level.
 

Wasylycia-Leis leads in all areas of city

The survey indicates Wasylycia-Leis leads in all areas of the city. Her support is strongest in the Winnipeg’s core neighbourhoods (47 per cent) and southeast Winnipeg (46 per cent).

“She’s leading actually by a significant margin in southeast Winnipeg which is where Gord Steeves used to be the city councillor for part of that, St. Vital,” said Brown.

In the affluent southwest, Wasylycia-Leis leads with 36 per cent support, but she is statistically tied with Brian Bowman at 34 per cent.

Steeves came in third place in all areas of the city except the northeast, where he came in second at 27 per cent, ahead of Bowman.

For a look at the poll results for all areas of the city, check out our gallery.
 

Women boost Wasylycia-Leis’ popularity

Brown says the polling data show Wasylycia-Leis has strong support among female voters.

“She’s leading among women and men, but really a big part of her support comes from the fact that she has 48 per cent of women supporting her,” he said.

By comparison, fewer than one-in-five women said they would vote for Bowman or Steeves (19 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively).

Although Wasylycia-Leis leads among male voters as well, her support is less dominating. Wasylycia-Leis has the support of 34 per cent of men, with 28 per cent supporting Bowman and 15 per cent supporting Steeves.

While Wasylycia-Leis has held on to most of the people who voted for her the Winnipeg’s last mayoral election (67 per cent), she has also managed to pick up support from 22 per cent of voters who supported her rival Sam Katz.

“She’s basically consolidated her support from 2010 and she’s built on it in very small ways, but for the most part she’s basically hung on to what she had,” said Brown.
 

Bowman the second-choice for most voters

If voters couldn’t vote for their first-choice candidate, most would go for Brian Bowman, the survey results indicate. A significant percentage of supporters of Wasylycia-Leis (38 per cent) and Steeves (38 per cent) said they would vote for Bowman if they were unable to support their preferred candidate.

Brown expects to see Bowman ramping up his attacks on Wasylycia-Leis in the remaining weeks leading up to the Oct. 22 vote.

“Even though Brian Bowman has kind of pulled himself into second, he would seem to have kind of the best shot of beating Judy Wasylycia-Leis at this point, but he has an incredibly long way to go,” he said.

“I think one of the things you may see him do is come out and say, ‘You know what, basically I’m the only candidate that could potentially beat Judy Wasylycia-Leis. Vote for me.’”