Doug Ford’s Implausible Three-Peat

This remains a race for second. Doug Ford and the PC Party of Ontario are close to pulling off a historic three-peat not seen in Ontario for decades. They lead in every region, and most demographics province-wide.

This is despite facing headwinds that could otherwise sink an incumbent campaign. 

Only 26% of Ontarians say Doug Ford is doing a good job as Premier and should be re-elected.

On people’s top issues, the PCs are not faring any better.

Satisfaction with his government’s handling of the cost of living (-51%), healthcare (-46%) and housing (-51%) are numbers that would usually spell political doom, yet Doug Ford is currently set to return as premier, possibly with a larger majority.

Why the potential landslide?

First, the campaign is being fought on the Conservative’s terms and in a frame that delivers votes and seats in places that are the most concerned about the twin threat of Trump and Tariffs.

Counsel Public Affairs’ Public Opinion team looked at Ontarians’ impressions of how each of the leaders are or would handle the current fight with Donald Trump and hands down, Doug Ford is seen as the best to handle him.

Even though the handling of a Trump presidency only just cracks the top five of issues important to Ontarians – behind healthcare, the cost of living, the economy and housing.

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The Trump Tariffs have a more direct impact in key regions of the province that are target seats for the PC Campaign.

Couple this with the fact that 22% of Ontario NDP and 25% of decided OLP voters think Doug Ford is the best to handle the Trump threat, those margins make a big difference in ridings that come down to 3-way fights or targeted Orange-Blue switchers like those in Hamilton, Niagara, Welland, and Windsor.

These are areas where the NDP currently holds seats but whose local economy would be decimated by Trump’s tariffs, meaning their ballot question is a bit more emotionally tied to their jobs and the urgency of the current situation. Picking up seats here by driving the ‘standing up to Trump’ message would be more than enough to return Doug Ford to office with a strengthened majority.

This is going to be a hard frame for the opposition parties to move – Trump, Tariffs and the 51st state discourse are on our screens every waking moment. Also, the fear people feel about their jobs, their families, and their futures in places impacted most by these tariffs is very real and it’s all-consuming. There’s little emotional bandwidth to process much else, making it hard to move the election elsewhere.

We at Counsel take the time to ask the honest questions and to see what’s happening below the surface, this helps us equip our clients with a deeper understanding of public opinion to help build winning campaigns.

While overall satisfaction with the PC government may be soft, the undercurrents – the regional and emotional salience of the current Tariff threat – is what’s helping the PCs chart a path to a potentially historic three-peat.

There’s still time to shake things up, but the opposition parties face a steep hill to climb with just 15 days left in this campaign. The leaders will face off in the northern issues debate on Friday, Feb 14 and a province-wide TV debate on Monday, Feb 17.

Stay tuned for more, on what the other parties could do to break this logjam, and what role the undecideds will play in this campaign as the countdown to election day continues.

NOTE ON METHODOLOGY

1,506 Ontario residents 18+ were surveyed between February 4 – February 10, 2025.

The survey was conducted online by the Leger Opinion (LEO) Panel, which was used in whole or in part for the collection of data. Margin of error is not applicable for online surveys, however, if the survey was a probability-based random sample of the same size, it would be considered accurate to +/- 3% nineteen times out of twenty. Results were weighted for age, gender, region of Ontario, and education with targets set out in the most recent census. Note: some slides, totals, or net-differences may not add up to 100% due to rounding.