Another Calgary mayoral poll shows it’s far from certain who will next sit in the mayor’s chair after Oct. 20.
The poll, conducted by Janet Brown Opinion Research of 1,000 Calgary residents through the Trend Research Online Panel between Oct. 1 and 8 for the CBC, shows one-third of voters have yet to make their decision for mayor, while others are considering more than one candidate.
“To see this higher proportion of people still undecided is quite remarkable,” Calgary-based Brown told CBC. “And it’s not just undecided, we’ve got another subset of people who say, ‘I don’t even know who’s in the race.’”
“I've never seen anything like this before at the national, the provincial or the local level.”
“We measured awareness of the candidates, candidates being considered, and voting intention, as if the election were held today.”
Undecided voters comprise 34% of respondents, which Brown said in an election as closely contended as this one, should be in the area of 12% to 15%.
“The other thing that really strikes me is, among those who do have an opinion about this election, it's a very tight race,” said Brown, adding among voters who are decided or leaning, former councillor and 2021 mayoral candidate Jeromy Farkas, running as an independent, has 27%, with 23% leaning towards incumbent Jyoti Gondek, also an independent and tied with Sonya Sharp, former councillor for Ward 1 and running under the Communities First party banner.
Fourth spot in decided or leaning voters is Jeff Davison, endorsed by A Better Calgary party, at 16%. Davison is also a former councillor and was a mayoral candidate in 2021.
In fifth, with 8% decided or leaning, is Brian Thiessen, a former police commission chair, running as a member of The Calgary Party.
Brown said a high number of Calgarians are considering multiple candidates.
“That overlap could turn into some sort of vote transference between now and the election,” she said. “What’s really fascinating here is just how wide open this race is, how tight this race is, and how much overlap there is between who I might consider voting for.”
The poll sought opinions of the introduction of political parties at the municipal level this year for the first time, finding a muted level of support, said Brown.
"Forty-five per cent of respondents said the introduction of political parties has been negative, while 13% said it was positive and 25% said it made no difference. Of the respondents, 17% said they didn’t know or didn’t have an answer."
The poll also surveyed participants’ opinions on how important it was to them that the City of Calgary pursue certain goals over the next four years, using a scale from zero to 10.
There was significant support for projects tied to maintaining water and road infrastructure, public safety and disorder downtown, as well as keeping residential property taxes low.
Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University told CBC the high level of those undecided could be due to a degree of uniformity in the candidates' policy approaches to those issues.
“You look at blanket rezoning: they’re all promising either a repealing or a reform of that. They’re all talking about stopping crime,” he told CBC.
Advance voting is down drastically this year compared to the 2021 election, according to ElectionsCalgary. After four days of advance voting this year, 54,626 votes were cast, compared to 81,801 in the first four days in 2021.
“It’s almost like this municipal race has just been ignored," said Bratt. "And maybe that will pick up in the two weeks to come."
“There’s also a lot of competition for voters' attention with the Alberta teachers’ strike and ongoing drama tied to the United States-Canada relationship.”
CBC will host a mayoral debate on Oct. 16 at the Red and White Club at McMahon Stadium.
Poll methodology:
One thousand Calgary residents were surveyed through the Trend Research Online Panel between Oct. 1 and 8, 2025, under the direction of Janet Brown Opinion Research. The survey was commissioned by CBC Calgary. Quotas were set for age, gender and city quadrant. Minimal weighting was applied to match Statistics Canada population data. As a non-probability online survey, a margin of error does not apply. However, the margin of error for a comparable probability sample would be +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
