They are six days that could be pivotal in deciding who is named mayor of Toronto later this month.
Tuesday marks the beginning of the advance voting period, opening a crucial window in the municipal election during which mayoral contenders will be vying to get their supporters to the polls and establish an early advantage.
Three years ago, Olivia Chow won the mayor’s job in large part because she trounced her main opponent in advance voting.
It was a vivid display of the power of early voting, which, as it becomes more popular, is transforming the nature of campaigns and what voters can expect in the race’s final stages.
Speaking Monday at an unrelated press conference, Chow, who is seeking a second term, urged residents to “make a plan” and vote early. She noted that polls on election day Oct. 26 don’t open until 10 a.m., when “everybody is working,” and many people might find it difficult to cast a ballot.
“So we encourage people to come out (early) because working families are busy,” she said.
A senior source on the 2026 Chow campaign, who requested anonymity to discuss political strategy, acknowledged advance polls will be an important factor. That’s simply because of the growing popularity of early voting, rather than any dynamic specific to this year’s race, they said, predicting that somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of turnout could take place by Sunday.
Chow locked down support early in 2023
In the 2023 mayoral byelection, about 130,000 people voted in advance polls, which ended up being about 18 per cent of all votes cast. About 60,000 of them went for Chow, roughly three times as many as went for her main rival, Ana Bailão.
Bailão actually did better than Chow on election day, earning 18,500 more votes than Chow. But Bailao’s late surge — widely attributed to former mayor John Tory’s last-minute endorsement — wasn’t enough to overcome the lead Chow built in early and mail-in voting, and she won by about 34,000 votes.
Heading into early voting this year, polls show Chow with a narrow lead over her main rival Brad Bradford, councillor for Beaches-East York.
Advance voting becoming more important
Advance voting is becoming increasingly popular in Canadian elections at all levels of government, according to Jack Lucas, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and co-director of the Canadian Municipal Barometer, a research project focused on local democracies. “People seem more and more willing or eager to take advantage of advance voting opportunities,” he said.
The higher portion of people voting early changes how campaigns operate, according to Lucas. For instance, Toronto mayoral candidates are less likely to be planning major policy proposals after this week.
“It’s not that strategically beneficial to launch something that you think is going to be widely popular” after a significant portion of voters have already cast their ballot, he said.
Campaigns will also shift their resources as they pivot from voter identification and persuasion — the main tasks earlier in the race — to getting out the vote. The teams have spent months collecting the contact information of likely supporters, and at this stage “they start to try to bombard those folks with reminders, starting with gentle and then (getting) increasingly desperate, to make sure they get out to the polls,” said Lucas.
Chow team stresses early polls
This past Sunday, Chow’s team started blitzes that will involve hundreds of volunteers going door-to-door across the city this week to remind supporters about the early polls. The mayor has been endorsed by major unions, such as CUPE 79 and 416, which represent city workers, and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents TTC employees, and organized labour is expected to provide muscle to her get-out-the-vote effort. But the source said the team has a broad coalition of people willing to hit the doorsteps for Chow.
Bradford’s team said they are taking their candidate’s message “directly to voters.”
“Volunteer teams are on doorsteps every day, putting up signs and reaching out to supporters to encourage them to make a plan to vote,” said campaign spokesperson Nastassia Varela. “We’re not waiting for Oct. 26, and we’re not conceding a single day of voting.”
The campaign did not answer a question about whether it would be leveraging the network of supporters who signed up for its controversial AI-powered app. Bradford has scheduled a rally in North York Thursday that in its promotional material encourages attendees to vote before they arrive.
The campaign for Chris Alexander, who is polling a distant third, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Advance polls for the offices of mayor, councillor and school trustee are open between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., from Tuesday, Oct. 6 to Sunday, Oct. 11. There are 50 polling locations, two in each ward. A total of 53 people are running for mayor.
