Riding poll: PCs show unexpected strength in Beaches-East York

Ontario's three major parties are in a rough three-way tie in Beaches-East York, a Mainstreet riding poll shows.

Liberal candidate Mary-Margaret McMahon, with 28.2 per cent, is slightly ahead of PC rival Angela Kennedy with 26.7 per cent, and Kate Dupuis of the NDP lags, though not far behind, at 23.5 per cent.

Those tight margins, however, are well within the poll's margin of error of 4.3 per cent, making the race too close to call.

It's an unexpected direction for a riding that has swung between the Liberals and the NDP for as long as it has existed in its current form, with provincial PCs, federal PCs, Reformers and federal Conservatives consistently in third or fourth place since before many current voters were born.

McMahon is a familiar name in the riding, having been a city councillor for two terms between 2010 and 2018. She was elected by comfortable margins.

Kennedy chairs Toronto's separate school board, and has been a trustee since 2000. Her social conservative stands on a number of issues have attracted controversy over the years. She has run provincially for the PCs three times before, in Beaches-East York and in Don Valley East.

Dupuis, a psychologist, replaces NDP incumbent MPP Rima Berns-McGown, who was elected in 2018 with over 48 per cent of the vote. Berns-McGown decided not to run again, saying that "Because I am a deeply introverted person, this job takes an enormous toll."

This Mainstreet Research poll was conducted on May 25. A sample of 529 people was interviewed by automated telephone interviews. The poll is accurate to within ±4.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The poll is weighted for age, sex, and region to be representative of the entire adult population of Canada.

Beyond the margin of error, all polls are subject to other sources of potential error, including coverage error. Riding surveys are particularly susceptible to coverage error; the smaller the population being surveyed, the greater the likelihood of coverage error.

The poll is not intended to predict what will happen in the future; it's a snapshot in time of what voter intentions were at the time of the fielding.

Mainstreet Research is part owner of iPolitics and QP Briefing.