Toronto Mayoral Election October 26, 2026: Chow vs Bradford in Dead Heat — Latest Polls

Photo: Secondarywaltz / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). File photo of Mayor Olivia Chow in Toronto — not from this week's campaign.

Two days out, Toronto's mayoral race has finally turned into the thing pundits kept predicting and voters never quite saw: a genuinely too-close-to-call fight. CP24 called it a "dead heat" on Friday as Olivia Chow and Brad Bradford barnstormed the city with their closing pitches. And honestly? Look at the polls and you can see why nobody wants to call it — the surveys can't even agree on who's ahead.

Toronto votes Monday, October 26, and the spread between the latest surveys is wider than the gap in any single one of them.

Latest polls: Bradford 49, Chow 47 — or the reverse

The tightest read comes from Liaison Strategies, one of the most accurate pollsters in Canada. Its survey of 1,000 Toronto residents, conducted October 18 and 19 and released October 21, has Brad Bradford at 49 per cent and Mayor Olivia Chow at 47 per cent among decided and leaning voters, with 3 per cent choosing someone else. Margin of error: plus or minus 3.1 points, 19 times out of 20.

That's a five-point Chow lead in the previous Liaison release, flipped entirely into a two-point Bradford edge. "This is not a result either campaign can treat as a clear lead," said Liaison principal David Valentin. "It is a much less comfortable race for the mayor than it was last week."

The regionals tell the real story of Bradford's surge. North York — where Chow led 50 to 46 just weeks ago — has flipped to 56 to 42 for Bradford. He leads 63 to 35 in Etobicoke. Chow still holds downtown 55 to 41, but Scarborough is almost perfectly split: 49 for Chow, 48 for Bradford.

But wait — other pollsters see a different race. Pollara, whose survey of 1,094 residents was released October 20, has Chow ahead by seven: 53 to 46 among decided voters. And Mainstreet Research, published the same day, sits right between the two: Bradford 48.9, Chow 47.5, which CEO Quito Maggi called "nearly equal."

Toronto election October 26: what the final fight is actually about

With the numbers this volatile, both campaigns spent the final stretch hammering kitchen-table issues. As CP24 reported Friday, Chow and Bradford were both making last-minute pitches on affordability, property taxes, and congestion — the three things that keep showing up when Torontonians get asked what's on their minds.

One flashpoint worth watching is Toronto Water. A Pollara survey found 62 per cent of Torontonians are concerned about the possibility of the utility being privatized — up from 60 per cent earlier in the month, and high enough to cross partisan lines: 57 per cent of undecided voters and even 27 per cent of Bradford supporters say they're worried.

The TTC has become its own battleground. After Bradford rolled out a transit pledge earlier this week, Chow's campaign fired back with a news release accusing him of, as a former TTC commissioner, backing budgets that let the system age — "Bradford helped create the maintenance challenges the TTC is fixing now," Chow said. "Even one slow zone is too many and I will eliminate them."

How to vote in the Toronto mayoral election

Here's what's at stake Monday. Chow won the 2023 byelection and is seeking her first full term as mayor; Bradford, a former city councillor, is trying to become Toronto's sixth mayor since amalgamation in 1998. Polls have Chow leading women decisively (60 to 39 in the Pollara survey) while Bradford runs ahead with men (52 to 45) — a gender gap that could decide the whole thing.

If you're eligible, vote Monday. And if you're trying to guess the winner from the polls — good luck. Even the pollsters don't agree with each other.

Sources

• Liaison Strategies — Toronto: Bradford 49%, Chow 47%; Race Too Close to Call
• Pollara Strategic Insights — Chow holds 7-point lead over Bradford
• Global News — Chow and Bradford neck-and-neck with days left in Toronto mayoral election campaign
• CP24 / CTV News — Crombie, Parrish, and Tedjo enter final campaign stretch (Oct. 23, 2026)