Catherine McKenney has very narrow lead in Ottawa mayoral race: poll

Ottawa mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney has a razor-thin lead over their main rival, Mark Sutcliffe, a Mainstreet poll suggests.

McKenney's 4.1 per cent lead is just above the three per cent margin of error in the poll, which was held earlier this week.

The outcome of Monday's election is a matter of turnout, multiple observers say.

"It comes to the issue of who's going to vote, how are they going to get people to vote and what the turnout is going to be," said Carleton University's Christopher Waddell.

Older voters, who tend to turn out more reliably, tend to support Sutcliffe, the poll shows.

"When you look at how, from the age breakdown, who's supporting whom, people over 65 vote in greater numbers than people 18 to 49," said Jerald Sabin, who also teaches at Carleton. "And that's where Sutcliffe's support is."

On the other hand, the poll also showed that 65 per cent of voters are dissatisfied with Ottawa's city government.

"It isn't a total surprise, but that is really high," Waddell said.

"I'm struck by how high the dissatisfaction is with the municipal government," Sabin said. "Part of that is going to be the city's response to the convoy, and part of that is going to be other non-convoy related things going on in the city, notably the LRT."

A change election dynamic tends to favour McKenney, Sabin argued.

"The Sutcliffe campaign, when it began, started from a position of continuity with the current administration at the city.

"As much as change is in the air, those who are interested in change will have coalesced around McKenney. And to the extent that the urban core of the city has been energized by the experience of the convoy, that may translate into enthusiasm for them on election day."

McKenney was one of the few political leaders who visibly stood up for the afflicted residents of central Ottawa during the convoy protest last winter. They may benefit from that prominence, which was reinforced in the public mind recently by their testimony at a federal commission examining the use of the Emergencies Act, according to Waddell.

READ MORE: Ottawa police did not respond to calls to hand over enforcement of convoy to RCMP: councillors

The convoy allowed McKenney to be seen on a larger stage, says the University of Ottawa's Luc Turgeon.

"I think the convoy in some ways allowed Catherine McKenney to became more known by more people.

"First, it helped Catherine McKenney become known outside the downtown core. And it helped people in the downtown core to be even more motivated to vote for Catherine McKenney."

Sabin agreed.

"It gave Councillor McKenney a higher profile and a platform from which to launch their campaign. Their consistent engagement during the convoy was in real contrast to what seemed to be a very chaotic and uncoordinated response from Ottawa City Hall, the province and the federal government."

The undecided number in the poll, 13 per cent, is lower than nearly any other municipal poll run recently by Mainstreet, other than Vancouver, where it was also 13 per cent. Hamilton's was 20 per cent, Surrey, B.C., was 25 per cent and Vaughan, Ont., was 50 per cent. It suggests a high level of engagement among Ottawans.

Former mayor Bob Chiarelli, now 81, and former police officer Param Singh are also running. Neither has a hope of winning, but at four per cent and 10 per cent respectively, they change the dynamic in a close race.

That tends to favour McKenney by diverting votes that would probably otherwise have gone to Sutcliffe, Turgeon argued.

"People who vote Chiarelli are more sort of centre-right, maybe a bit older people who have a memory of Mr. Chiarelli when he was mayor. So I think these people usually would tend to vote for Mark Sutcliffe if it was a battle between just two candidates."

"The division of the vote on the centre-right is really helping Catherine McKenney because it’s taking votes that in a two-way battle would go to Sutcliffe."