POLL: Local poll respondents favouring PCs for 2022 election so far

The provincial election is less than a year away, and many Ontarians are starting to think about which party will have their vote in 2022.

The COVID-19 crisis has politicized almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives, and many Saultites and residents across Ontario have found themselves more invested in who will lead us in a post-pandemic world than ever before.

This got us wondering. How would Saultites vote if an election was held today?

So we asked our readers: The next provincial election is less than a year away. If it were held today, who would you vote for?

While its still early, our results suggest Saultites are leaning toward voting PC, with 32 per cent of the vote going that way.

Out of 1,705 votes, 405 chose Liberal.

The breakdown was as follows:

• 541 (32 per cent) voted Progressive Conservative
• 405 (24 per cent) voted Liberal
• 316 (19 per cent) voted New Democratic Party
• 265 (16 per cent) voted none of the above
• 108 (six per cent) voted Green Party
• 70 (four per cent) voted 'I don't vote'

The 43rd Ontario general election will be held on or before June 2, 2022. Currently, Premier Doug Ford is leading the PC party, while Andrea Horwath is at the helm of the NDP. Steven Del Duca is leading the Ontario Liberals and Mike Schreiner, the Green Party. In 2022, the newly founded New Blue Party of Ontario will be in the running, led by Jim Karahalios.

In the Sault Ste. Marie riding, incumbent and Progressive Conservative Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Ross Romano will be running for re-election in 2022.

The local NDPs have again named Michele McCleave-Kennedy as their candidate. McCleave-Kennedy previously ran in the 2018 election against Romano in a tightly contested race.

Locally, Liberal and Green candidates have not yet been selected.

Last election, Kara Flannigan represented the Green Party and Jaclynne Hammel led the Liberals.

A total of 1,705 confirmed local votes were cast in the poll. This poll had a 2.35 per cent margin of error, 19 times out of 20.

SooToday's polling system allows for the capture of relevant local data and gives us the ability to detect and prevent fraudulent votes, as well as detect and prevent robots and filter out non-local duplicate votes.