Will Olivia Chow win the 2026 Toronto mayoral election?

Q narrowly backs Olivia Chow to win re-election because Chow leads among voters most certain to cast a ballot and runs the deeper citywide organization.

Toronto's mayoral race enters its final days genuinely close, and the visible evidence does not point only one way. Three recent surveys give Olivia Chow a lead among decided voters, and the most recent Nanos reading has Chow ahead by about three points among decided voters and by four points among the people most certain to vote. Three other surveys taken over the same stretch put Brad Bradford marginally ahead, with the newest Liaison Strategies release showing Bradford up two points after Chow's earlier five-point cushion disappeared and with Bradford's swing concentrated in North York. Both campaigns describe the race as extremely tight, and turnout of roughly 222,550 advance voters, far above the 2023 byelection pace, means the result turns on who actually shows up and how the remaining undecided voters break. That mixed picture is why the balance of the evidence alone does not settle the question. What tips it, narrowly, toward the incumbent is the composition of the likely electorate rather than the raw horserace: Chow's support is concentrated among voters who reliably vote and in the downtown, East York and Scarborough areas where turnout is highest, while Bradford's lead rests partly on older suburban voters and on voters less certain to cast a ballot. Chow also enters the final week with a larger, better-financed organizational footprint and endorsements from several labour and industry groups, advantages that matter when the margin is a few points. Incumbency is a modest help as well, though not a strong one: about half of Toronto voters say the city is moving in the wrong direction and more disapprove than approve of Chow's performance, which caps how far ahead she can be. The ballot also lists a second candidate named Chow immediately above the incumbent, a quirk political scientists say could cost her a small number of votes. Markets currently treat Olivia Chow's re-election as slightly less likely than not, a view that weights the newest horserace surveys more heavily than Chow's advantage among voters most certain to cast a ballot.