{"id":224820,"date":"2025-10-19T15:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T15:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224820\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T15:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T15:17:07","slug":"political-outsider-leads-ontario-liberal-leadership-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224820\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Political outsider\u2019 leads Ontario Liberal leadership: Poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pollster Kyla Ronellenfitsch discusses the survey which found Dr. Andrew Boozary, a political outsider is the only contender who could defeat Premier Doug Ford. <\/p>\n

A new poll suggests Ontario\u2019s Liberal leadership race is wide open, but one political outsider is already standing out.<\/p>\n

The survey conducted by Relay Strategies and shared exclusively with CTV News found that Dr. Andrew Boozary, a Toronto physician and policy expert, is the only contender who could defeat Premier Doug Ford in a head-to-head matchup.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical outsider Dr. Andrew Boozary is far more eye-catching than established candidates,\u201d the survey noted. <\/p>\n

The online poll surveyed 1,268 Ontarians between Oct. 10 and 13, 2025. Officials note that while online surveys cannot report a formal margin of error, a random sample of this size would carry an approximate margin of +\/-3 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Last month, the party\u2019s executive council approved the creation<\/a> of a leadership vote committee following Bonnie Crombie\u2019s announcement that she will step down as leader after receiving just 57 per cent<\/a> in a leadership review at the party\u2019s annual general meeting on Sept. 14.<\/p>\n

The survey was released as the Ontario Liberal Party begins preparing for a new leadership<\/a> race. <\/p>\n

Crombie, who was elected in 2023, has previously said she will vacate the position once a successor is chosen.<\/p>\n

Boozary leads field of low-profile contenders<\/p>\n

The poll indicates that most Ontarians are unfamiliar with the rumoured candidates.<\/p>\n

Speaking to CP24 Sunday morning, Kyla Ronellenfitsch from Relay Strategies suggested that it\u2019s not entirely uncommon for political outsiders to resonate with voters. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we think back… to when Mark Carney was generating a lot of buzz, he\u2019s somebody with a pretty substantial profile outside of politics.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ronellenfitsch suggest that officials wanted to compare how unconventional politicians would \u201cmatch up\u201d against people who are a little bit more well known in politics.<\/p>\n

The survey highlighted that 55 per cent of respondents have never heard of Lee Fairclough even though she is an Ontario MPP representing the riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 52 per cent have never heard of Nate Erskine-Smith, 48 per cent have never heard of Navdeep Bains, and 40 per cent have never heard of Karina Gould.<\/p>\n

\"\"Liberal MP for Burlington Karina Gould will chair the House of Commons finance committee for this session of Parliament. Gould speaks with media as she makes her way to a caucus meeting on Monday, March 10, 2025 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Adrian W… Liberal MP for Burlington Karina Gould will chair the House of Commons finance committee for this session of Parliament. Gould speaks with media as she makes her way to a caucus meeting on Monday, March 10, 2025 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Adrian Wyld <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t know a lot about any of the candidates,\u201d said Ronellenfitsch. \u201cThat kind of leaves some space for an outsider to come in and generate some interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gould and Erskine-Smith are currently Liberal MPs, while Navdeep Bains is a former Liberal MP and now works for<\/a> Rogers Communications.<\/p>\n

In addition, when respondents were shown photos, biographies, and social media content for three potential candidates, still, Boozary emerged as a clear front-runner. <\/p>\n

Nearly half of Ontarians (48 per cent) said Boozary would make the best Ontario Liberal leader, compared to 30 per cent for Gould and 23 per cent for Erskine-Smith. <\/p>\n

Among current or former Liberal members, Boozary held a similar edge: 44 per cent preferred him, followed by Gould and Erskine-Smith at 28 per cent each.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s best suited to beat Ford in a head-to-head?<\/p>\n

According to the survey, in a hypothetical provincial election matchup, Boozary was the only contender who would surpass Premier Doug Ford\u2014with 52 per cent of Ontarians preferring Boozary as premier, compared to 48 per cent for Ford.<\/p>\n

\"\"FORD Premier Doug Ford is seen in this photo composite alongside Dr. Andrew Boozary. (LEFT: THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young. RIGHT: THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Chris Young). <\/p>\n

By contrast, Ford leads against other potential contenders: 53 per cent of respondents said they would prefer Ford over Karina Gould (47 per cent), and 55 per cent favoured Ford over Nate Erskine-Smith (45 per cent).<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the lack of a permanent leader, the Ontario Liberals continue to poll ahead of the NDP,\u201d the survey noted. <\/p>\n

If an election were held today, 44 per cent of Ontarians would vote for Ford\u2019s Progressive Conservatives, 29 per cent for the Liberals, 17 per cent for Marit Stiles and the NDP, six per cent for the Greens, and five per cent for another party.<\/p>\n

Liberals seek a \u2018fresh, experienced\u2019 leader<\/p>\n

Among the Ontario Liberal voters, the most important leadership qualities are economic management experience (86 per cent), political experience (82 per cent), and perceived electability (81 per cent). <\/p>\n

Experience managing public services such as healthcare ranked high at 79 per cent, while 71 per cent said being \u201cnew and refreshing\u201d was important.<\/p>\n

The data suggest that Boozary who has never held elected office but has experience in health policy and administration, may align closely with what Liberals want in their next leader.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s should be noted that Boozary has not indicated whether he has any intention to run but Ronellenfitsch says already he\u2019s someone who has generated \u201ca little bit of buzz\u201d early on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pollster Kyla Ronellenfitsch discusses the survey which found Dr. Andrew Boozary, a political outsider is the only contender…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-224820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}