With the city’s mayoral election coming up in less than three weeks, new data shows that the majority of Winnipeggers support incumbent Brian Bowman.
The survey, which was conducted by Probe Research in collaboration with CTV Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Free Press, polled 653 adults in Winnipeg between Sept. 19 and 28 about who they plan to vote for in the upcoming election.
The results of the survey show that Bowman has a strong lead over all of his opponents and is being backed by people of different demographics, political affiliations and in all parts of the city.
Overall 61 per cent of decided or leaning respondents said they are voting for Bowman, while 28 per cent said they plan to vote for Jenny Motkaluk. No other mayoral candidate had more than three per cent support from those surveyed.
Thirty-two per cent of those surveyed were either undecided or not planning to vote.
Christopher Adams, who is a political scientist at St. Paul’s College at the University of Manitoba, said these results aren’t overly surprising except for the fact that none of the fringe candidates have more support.
“I guess I’m a little bit surprised at that. I would expect there’d be more of a difference between some of the so-called fringe candidates,” he said.
“But clearly it’s two candidates according to this poll. Clearly there are two candidates leading this and that’s Bowman at 60-something per cent and Motkaluk at 30-something per cent.”
When the respondents are broken down into which area of Winnipeg they live in, it shows that Bowman takes the lead in every single region, though his support is strongest in the southwest (69 per cent) and southeast (64 per cent). For Motkaluk, her strongest area of support is in Winnipeg’s northeast division, with 40 per cent of residents planning to vote for her.
When it comes to the political party preference of those surveyed the numbers show that Bowman is backed across the board, with support from 72 per cent of Liberals, 69 per cent of the NDP and 52 per cent of Progressive Conservatives (PC). As for Motkaluk, 37 per cent of people who vote PC, 19 per cent who prefer the NDP and 21 per cent who support the Liberal Party are voting for her. The survey results didn’t show strong support from any political party for any of the other candidates.
When those surveyed are divided up into demographics, including age, gender, education, homeowners and income level, the majority of people in every single subgroup said they plan to vote for Bowman. In almost every demographic category, Bowman had the support of between 57 per cent and 67 per cent of respondents.
The only demographic in which Motkaluk and Bowman showed similar numbers were with residents who have an income that’s less than $30,000, with 46 per cent saying they plan to vote for Bowman and 41 per cent in support of Motkaluk, although the survey only looked at a small sample size of people in this pay range.
As for whether Motaluk could pull ahead of Bowman in these final weeks, Adams said it isn’t impossible.
“Things could turn around for Motkaluk in the next couple of weeks, but clearly she’s established herself, with this poll, she’s established herself as the clear number two candidate and those who want to vote against Bowman will coalesce around her candidacy,” he said.
Manitoba’s municipal election is on Oct. 24. Advanced voting has begun at various polling stations around the city.
