Poll shows Ford least popular Ontario leader, yet PC party holds 43% of vote

A new Angus Reid poll shows Ontario Premier Doug Ford of the Progressive Conservative party is the least popular Ontario party leader.

Support for the PCs, however, far surpasses that of either the NDPs, which is currently the official opposition party at Queen’s Park, Toronto, and the Liberals, which currently have the third highest number of seats.

The online survey was conducted from January 30 to February 3 from a randomized sample of

1,760 Ontarian adults. The data has a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

More than half of those that support Ford’s party, three in five, say they will vote for Ford because they “dislike the other options more.”

Ford was confident he would score an even greater mandate when he called an early snap election last week, especially as Canada battled with President Donald Trump’s administration over Trump’s 25% tariff threat.

He was an outspoken proponent of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s strategy to “fight back” — contrasted with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s insistence Canada needs to actually do something about its weak border in order for Trump to consider a reprieve from the tariff threat.

Trudeau on Monday ended up on the phone twice with Trump (after on Saturday the prime minister admitted on a national broadcast the president hasn’t accepted his calls since his January 20 inauguration) — where he agreed to a $1.3 billion border plan that was suspiciously similar to Smith’s proposal, including sending 10,000 officers to the border and installing a border “czar” to demonstrate to the US Canada is taking its fentanyl problem seriously.

Despite Ford’s efforts to stand up for Trump — and his lamentations of being “stabbed in the heart” by the president this week before the one-month tariff pause was announced — the people of Ontario are lukewarm about the premier.

The Angus poll shows Ford’s unpopularity has little impact on voting outcomes: a total of 43% would support the PCs, while only 26% would support the Liberals, and the NDP falls to third place with only 21% of the vote.

Ford has a whopping -27 net approval. Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has a -9 net approval, while NDP leader Marit Styles has -2.

Notably, many Ontarians surveyed said they don’t know enough about the other leaders to have a positive or negative impression; 28% are unfamiliar with Crombie, 30% with Stiles and 37% with returning Green leader Mike Shreiner.