The road to the mayor’s office runs through Toronto’s inner suburbs. It’s a reality that’s brought to light by a new analysis illustrating just how — and where — past office holders have been able to stitch together a constituency of support across the city.
The importance of winning over voters outside the core is down to simple electoral math of post-amalgamation Toronto, said Zack Taylor, an associate professor of political science at Western University, who performed the analysis for the University of Toronto’s School of Cities.
“There are way more eligible voters in the old metro suburbs” of Etobicoke, York, North York, East York and Scarborough than there are downtown, he said. “So that’s where the votes are, and you need to get them” he said.
But while Toronto’s downtown and its suburbs are often thought of as opposing tribes, with the core always voting for left-leaning candidates and the outer boroughs backing conservatives, Taylor’s analysis — a poll-by-poll, census-tract level breakdown of past elections — paints a more complicated picture. It suggests potential fault lines in the suburbs, with neighbourhoods there sometimes supporting different brands of conservatism depending on residents’ socioeconomic status.
It also shows suburban areas aren’t always hostile territory for progressives. In fact, Toronto’s left-leaning mayors have relied on significant support from voters outside downtown to come to power. That includes Olivia Chow, who won three years ago by winning large swathes of Scarborough. It’s a feat she may have to repeat to be successful in the Oct. 26 vote, and her main opponent, Brad Bradford, seems intent on trying to block her.
There are limits to the analysis. It only reflects votes cast on election day, not advance ballots. And each election has its own dynamics based on the number of candidates, the politics of the day, voter turnout and other factors.
Still, the maps of three recent competitive Toronto elections show where mayors have secured their victories, and offer a potential path to success for this year’s candidates.
Rob Ford 2010: Run the suburbs
Ford stormed into the mayor’s office in 2010 with a populist agenda promising low taxes, smaller government and an end to the “gravy train” at city hall. It was a right-wing message that resonated throughout the suburbs, particularly his home turf of North Etobicoke, where he won more than 84 per cent of the vote in some areas.
He got almost two-thirds of the vote in other parts of suburban Toronto, such as sections of Scarborough’s West Rouge and North York’s Westminster-Branson. A majority of voters in some affluent areas outside of downtown, such as parts of Bridle Path-Sunnybrook-York Mills, also backed him.
Ford’s support was low in downtown areas south of Bloor Street, at just 15 per cent in places like Church-Wellesley. But he still ended up with more than 47 per cent of the vote citywide.
His victory showed that a right-leaning mayoral candidate can win by crafting a message that plays well in the suburbs and gets little traction downtown. Ford won by being “all suburbs, all the time,” said Taylor.
John Tory 2014: Split the suburbs
Doug Ford took up the family standard in the 2014 mayor’s race, but failed to replicate his brother’s popularity across the suburbs. Instead, neighbourhoods outside the core largely split between him and the winner, former Progressive Conservative leader John Tory.
The division was largely along economic lines, according to Taylor. Ford’s anti-elite populism was popular in areas where incomes were below or near the city average, such as parts of Malvern in Scarborough, and West Humber-Clairville in North Etobicoke.
Meanwhile, Tory positioned himself as a moderate centre-right leader who could provide stability after the scandal-filled Ford administration, a message that appealed in well-off communities outside downtown. That included parts of Forest Hill, Rosedale and the northern Yonge Street corridor.
Tory took more than 70 per cent of the vote in sections of Etobicoke’s Kingsway South, where household incomes are more than twice the city average. Across town in parts of Cliffcrest, a lakeside Scarborough neighbourhood where incomes are just above average, more than 50 per cent of voters backed Tory.
Those midtown and suburban areas, plus his strong showings in more central neighbourhoods such as the Beaches and Downtown Yonge East, were enough to get Tory about 40 per cent of the citywide vote.
Tory’s win revealed divisions between what kind of conservative candidate wealthier and low-income suburban areas would support, according to Taylor. He described that dynamic as “Toronto’s two rights.”
Olivia Chow 2023: “Core plus”
Taylor has a warning for progressive mayoral hopefuls: “You cannot win by core alone,” he said.
Left-leaning contenders who are popular downtown but nowhere else have been doomed to lose. That’s what happened to Chow in 2014, Jennifer Keesmaat in 2018, and Gil Penalosa in 2022.
In the 2023 byelection to replace Tory, Chow’s support was concentrated downtown, but she won by also breaking through in suburban areas. Taylor calls this the “core plus” strategy, which David Miller, the only other left-leaning mayor to lead post-amalgamation Toronto, also used successfully in 2003 and 2006.
Three years ago Chow won more than half the votes cast in many areas downtown, including parts of the Annex, North Riverdale and Kensington-Chinatown. But outside the core, she also picked up about 45 per cent in places like the East York apartment community of Thorncliffe Park.
Further from the core, she got more than 50 per cent in a part of the Milliken neighbourhood in the far north of Scarborough, which had voted for the Fords in previous elections. On the opposite side of the city, Chow also had a decent showing with nearly 40 per cent support in parts of the New Toronto section of south Etobicoke.
These suburban areas where Chow did well were either home to a higher than average percentage of immigrants, lower-income families, or both. Taylor said Chow’s support in those neighbourhoods wasn’t surprising given that during the campaign she often highlighted her personal story as an immigrant from Hong Kong. She also put forward policies aimed at helping renters and lower-income residents, such as taxing “luxury” homes and building more affordable housing.
Taylor’s mapping analysis doesn’t account for advance votes, which aren’t tracked by polling location so can’t be linked to specific census tracts. That’s important because in 2023, fewer people actually cast a ballot for Chow on voting day than for her main opponent, Ana Bailão. Chow still won because she did better in advance and mail-in votes.
Early ballots are tracked by ward however, and data accounting for those votes, combined with those cast on election day, shows Chow won five of six wards in Scarborough, and only narrowly lost the sixth, emphasizing how well she did in the eastern suburb. Citywide she took about 37 per cent of all votes in a crowded field.
Where the 2026 race could be decided
If Chow is able to shore up the progressive downtown vote, this year’s mayoral election could come down to whether she’s able to replicate the success she had in Scarborough three years ago.
That explains why both Bradford and Chow have been focusing energy in that part of town, making regular campaign stops to talk about important local issues such as transit and public safety.
Taylor said it could be possible for Bradford, the councillor for Beaches-East York, to lose Scarborough and still beat Chow, but he would have to run up his numbers elsewhere in the suburbs. “He’d have to do really well in Etobicoke and North York,” Taylor said.
So far, Bradford is running a campaign targeted to the “classic suburban property-owning voter,” said Taylor. He has promised to freeze property taxes in his first year, hire 1,000 more police officers and remove bike lanes on Bloor Street in Etobicoke.
For her part, Chow is hitting the same affordability themes that likely helped her in areas outside the core in 2023, but is also attempting to broaden her appeal with more centrist voters, such as by promising to keep future property tax increases “at or around” the rate of inflation, a strategy that could play well in the suburbs.
Complicating Bradford’s road to city hall is Chris Alexander’s campaign. The former Conservative MP is polling a distant third but could peel off some of the right-leaning suburban support Bradford needs.
