A new municipal political poll shows a familiar mayoral race could be on the horizon, as current Mayor Jyoti Gondek and 2021 runner-up Jeromy Farkas are locked in a dead heat.

One UCalgary political scientist said caution must be exercised, however, due to the high number of undecideds, and low overall number of respondents.

The online survey of 454 people in Calgary proper was conducted by Leger between Oct. 18 and 24, with results weighted to age and gender to ensure a representative sample. No margin of error can be assigned to a non-probability sample, however, a similarly sized sample would yield a margin of error of +/- 4.6 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

The poll was commissioned by a group of Calgarians urging Jeromy Farkas to run, just to see where he stood in a potential mayoral race.

Among all residents surveyed, 13 per cent said they would be most likely to support Farkas if an election were held today followed closely by current Mayor Jyoti Gondek (9 per cent).

Former city councillor and third-place contestant in the last mayoral race, Jeff Davison, ran third in the survey at six per cent.  Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp (four per cent) and Dan McLean (three per cent), along with Brian Thiessen were logged in the rest of the field.

“Greater than half (54%) of Calgary residents report they are unsure or undecided

regarding their voting intention in the event of a municipal election,” read the Leger survey.

So far, Davison and Thiessen are the only candidates to have declared their intention to run in 2025. Still, there’s more than just speculation that many of the other names on the list are organizing efforts in advance of next October’s mayoral race.

Support still there, says insider

Alex McColl, a long-time friend of Farkas, said they’ve been urging him to announce a run for mayor for some time. For his part, Farkas, the former Ward 11 councillor, has told LWC that he’s hasn’t closed the door on the 2025 election, and hasn’t yet made a decision on a run.

McColl said the survey results didn’t shock him – at least from a Farkasian viewpoint.  

“I’m not surprised. I think Jeromy is the best candidate from a center-right perspective,” he said.

“I was a little shocked that (Mayor) Gondek was still polling as well as she was.”

McColl said this time around he believes Farkas would run a campaign focused on a positive vision for Calgary, not picking apart its flaws.

“He’ll focus on all the good he wants to do for Calgary, and he doesn’t want to be fighting with people on the right,” McColl said.

A May survey done by Leger showed Mayor Gondek at around 12 per cent voting intention. The question was asked at that time that if an election were held today would you vote for Mayor Gondek or someone else?

UCalgary political scientist Lisa Young said you have to interpret this most recent survey with caution. It’s a low sample size to begin with, and then to have half undecided means that the sample size for candidate favourability is even lower.

“A lot of what this tells me is that lots of people aren’t paying attention,” she told LWC.

“The thing that we always have to keep in mind about municipal politics is that name recognition is tremendously important, and that’s why incumbents tend to do well because their name has been out there.”

Mayor Gondek’s name and face are regularly in the news, and despite some negatives that may exist, name recognition is still key, Young said. Farkas has been in the news ever since his 2021 defeat, not only for his charity work and more recently as the Glenbow Park Ranch CEO and advocacy around the Glenbow dam option, but also his prior regular appearances on CBC radio with former mayor and current Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi.

Young said there would be a lot of work needed by potential candidates without the same name recognition to carve out a viable niche for themselves over the next year.

As far as Farkas being the front runner, Young said this poll merely shows that he has some support in the city.

“Until we know who else is in the race, what party labels they’ve got attached to them, it’s very early days,” she said.

“There’s nothing in this that says to Farkas that he shouldn’t run, but it also doesn’t say that he’s going to be mayor.”

Other municipal election survey slides