An 8-point increase in the Liberal campaign awareness numbers appears to be pulling centre left voters out of the PC coalition back to the Ontario Liberals.
These are some of the findings of an online survey of 800 Ontarians sponsored and conducted by Innovative Research Group (INNOVATIVE). The online survey was conducted between February 12th and 16th, 2025.
Doug Ford and the PC party currently hold 45% of the decided vote in Ontario, down from 49% just a week ago. The Ontario Liberal party has jumped from 22% last week to 28% this week. The NDP remain in third place at 18%.
While Ontarians continue to read, see or hear more about the Ontario PCs than the other two parties, the big change is this week is more Ontarians paying attention to the Liberals, Liberal awareness jumped from 25% in week 1 and week 2 to 33% this week. The NDP rose 3-points to 20% while the PCs dropped 3-points to 49%.
The campaign discourse is leaving all parties better off. While the NDP have the lowest awareness, the campaign is helping them the most (+31% more favourable) driven mostly by news about election promises in general (+45% net favourable).
The PCs are also gaining points from the campaign with a +20% net favourable rating. Standing up to Donald Trump is what makes Ontarians feel most favourable (+47% net favourable) about Ford and the PCs.
The Liberals are also gaining ground (+13 net favourable), with news about healthcare (+47% net favourable) doing the heavy lifting.
Looking at total favourables, (very + somewhat favourable), Ford is at the head of the pack at 42%, followed by Bonnie Crombie at 35% and Marit Stiles at 33%. When neutrals and don’t knows are removed to calculate net favourable, a different story emerges. Stiles comes out ahead at +8%, followed by Ford at +3% and Crombie at -2%.
When it comes to who will make the best Premier, Doug Ford is once again at the top of the heap at 37%, followed by Bonnie Crombie at 22%. It is worth noting that Ford is on a four-wave downward trend, while Crombie jumped 5 points in the past week. He still has a big lead, but the gap is narrowing.
Click here to read the full report!
