The Progressive Conservatives have shed a few points but continue to hold a commanding lead over their provincial rivals in the final week of Ontario’s election campaign, a new poll shows.
A poll conducted exclusively by Ipsos Global Public Affairs for Global News shows if the election were held tomorrow, the PCs would record a comfortable win.
Doug Ford’s party pulled 46 per cent support in the new poll, with Bonnie Crombie’s Liberals in second place at 25 per cent. Marit Stiles and the NDP were in third at 21 per cent and Mike Schreiner’s Green Party was in fourth place at eight per cent.
The poll represents a slight shift from public opinion at the beginning of the campaign. The PCs are down four points, the Greens are up two and both the Liberals and NDP have seen a one-point boost.
“It looks at the moment like Premier Ford and the Progressive Conservative Party are cruising to a third majority government,” Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos, told Global News.
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Ford himself continues to hold the rating for best premier at 45 per cent, followed by Crombie at 24 per cent and Stiles at 18. All three have dropped marginally since the start of the race, while Schreiner has increased three points to 13 per cent.
The relatively unchanged polling numbers come as Ontario’s winter election struggles to catch the imagination of an electorate preoccupied with other matters.
“It is probably the lowest heartbeat election in a major jurisdiction that I can remember in many years — it’s almost like it’s not going on and people haven’t noticed very much,” Bricker said.
“So far, really a low-intensity campaign. It seems that people really, at the moment in Ontario, are more focused on things, like, for example, Canada-U.S. relations, which really is more of a national issue … so they’re not paying attention to how this election campaign is playing out.”
The latest polling suggests the Progressive Conservatives could record a bigger win than in 2022, even with a drop of four points since the start of the campaign.
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In 2022, the PCs pulled 41 per cent of the popular vote, compared to Friday’s poll lead of 46 points. The Liberals and NDP recorded 24 per cent in 2022 and are tracking at 25 and 21 per cent respectively.
The Greens recorded six per cent in 2022 and eight per cent in the latest poll.
Ford launched the election under the threat of tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump, arguing he needed an increased mandate from the electorate to stimulate the economy.
The PC leader has strictly adhered to that campaign plan under the banner Protect Ontario, unveiling tariff-related spending plans and little else. He has also made two trips to Washington D.C., in his capacity as premier of a caretaker government, with campaign aids also in tow.
That message, Bricker said, is serving Ford well.
“What we’ve seen emerge during the course of the election campaign is obviously Canada-U.S. relations and economic issues that relate to our pending trade difficulties with the United States and they really seem to be dominating the agenda,” he said.
“So to the extent that any leader could read what this election was about, Doug Ford couldn’t have read it any better.”
The Ipsos polling shows the No. 1 issue for people in Ontario is health care at 45 per cent. It’s an issue the Liberals hold a five-point lead over the Progressive Conservatives on.
The next three most important issues — help with the cost of day-to-day needs, lower taxes and the economy and jobs — all favour the PCs.
The poll showed no party was seen as the best to handle helping to make housing more affordable, while the NDP had a 13-point lead on the next most important issue, the creation of affordable housing.
Overall, the PCs were chosen as the most competent party to deliver for five of the top nine most important issues.
The final week of the campaign, as more voters consider their options, could see more movement, Bricker said.
“There is a week to go and what we’ve noticed in elections, not just in Canada but worldwide, is we tend to see out most of the movement in election campaigns right near the very end,” he explained.
“But how that could move in this, in this particular circumstance is difficult to say because it’s been so steady.”
METHODOLOGY: This Ipsos poll was conducted between Feb. 18 and 20, 2025, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 800 residents of Ontario aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the population of Ontario according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 4.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Ontarians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
