Early Mayoral Predictions
With election signs and campaign offices popping up all over the city, next month’s municipal election has finally started to grab our attention. Granted, we’re still in denial of the fact that summer is officially over, still in shock of Mayor Gerretsen’s decision not to seek election, and still waiting for a singular divisive election issue to rally behind. Over the past few weeks, conversations online, around the office, and at my barber shop have increasingly turned towards who’s running, who’s not, and which issues are of vital importance to the future of the city of Kingston.
With three currently serving city Councillors vying for the mayoralty and three other Kingstonians throwing their hats into the ring for the city’s top job, voters certainly have their work cut out for them in terms of deciding who to support. While each of the candidates entered into the race with varying degrees of support from their respective bases, just how many of us have actually vetted the hopefuls and thrown our support behind a single candidate? At this early stage in the game, candidates have a great deal of work ahead in terms of convincing voters to come on side.
Personally, I’ve been surprised by the people who I’ve spoken with who’ve already made up their mind this early in the campaign. Reasons for preliminary support range from a candidate’s past experience on city council to their position pertaining to downtown bike lanes and their overall vision to transform the city. Conversely, reasons cited for overlooking mayoral hopefuls have been as paltry as so-and so has yet to knock on my door to their lack of name recognition. While time is running out for each candidate to make that lasting connection, there’s still enough daylight remaining for door-to-door campaigning, decisive debating and other means of building critical mass of support.
Whether you’ve already made a decision, or are currently comfortably sitting on the fence, this week’s poll question takes aim at predicting the final outcome of the 2014 mayoral race. Accordingly:
Who will be Kingston's next Mayor?
- Bryan Paterson (33%, 51 Votes)
- Brenda Slomka (33%, 51 Votes)
- Rick Downes (18%, 28 Votes)
- Dorothy Hector (15%, 24 Votes)
- Scott Foster (2%, 3 Votes)
- Michael J. M. Owen (1%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 156
Loading ...What issues are important to you? How do you intend on making your selection prior to election day? What questions do you want answered by the candidates prior to election day? Most importantly, will Kingston’s next mayor inherit this Twitter account?
Original photo credit to Karen.
An interesting poll, I'm logged into the website; and, the results of the poll indicate that I have voted for Bryan Paterson.
That's certainly not someone that I'd be voting for in this election!
Something very wrong here.
Sorry about that Scott. There is no record of your Intense Debate account nor your IP voting for anyone in the logs.
Scott, the results show the total number of votes for each candidates. I actually strongly support Bryan Paterson as I believe he is the only candidate that has the bigger picture in mind. For anyone reading these comments just go to each of the candidate websites site (ie. or http://www.bryan4mayor.ca) and I think you will clearly see who is actually taking the time to engage the public and explain their platform. It is time for Kingston to embrace change instead of resetting the clock every four years
I think Downes has strong support with the endorsement of Ipsum Loremson . Ipsum Loremson is a very well know person.. Seriously. This text should be changes or the page should be disabled
Rick Downes is the only proven candidate of honesty and integrity.He is not wanted by the backroom boys who destroy democracy all the time.
Online poles are always prone to 'candidate team voting' . The one running right now for the whig has a completely different result to this one as well, mind you it is two weeks later, and after stories that broke in other outlets, you would expect a shift away from the 'front runners' we see here. Most interesting was the poll conducted by a third party for free… essentially to demonstrate their business ability. They don't have a horse in the race, makes it more believable as a snapshot of last week, given the sample size and the fact it occurred in hours.
After watching the 5 candidates on CKWS, Oct.16th, I'm still uncertain for whom to vote. I found it hard to follow some of the candidates' presentations as Dorothy Hector would interrupt them. Brenda Slomka stood out as reasonable and a good listener who would be capable of conducting a harmonious council. However, if the contest is between the 3 councillors, am I wasting my vote?
The only wasted vote, is the vote not placed.
I'd rather vote for someone with integrity who I feel I can stand with and have that candidate lose, than vote for someone I don't actually want representing me.
We need to go to ranked ballots,so that your second choice is considered if your 1st choice is dumped.