. . .  When you've got Doug Ford as the Conservative leader ?    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯   
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   The Star - Queen's Park Bureau Chief - Wed., Jan. 15, 2020   
      
      
   Poll puts leaderless Liberals ahead of Doug Ford’s Conservatives   
      
      
   The Ontario Liberals have vaulted ahead of the governing Progressive   
   Conservatives even though the party will not elect a new leader for another   
   seven weeks, a new poll suggests.   
      
   According to the Pollara Strategic Insights survey, the Liberals are at 33 per   
   cent, the Tories at 29 per cent, the New Democrats at 27 per cent, and the   
   Greens at nine per cent.   
      
   “Despite the pretty definitive loss that they received in 2018, the Liberal   
   brand is strong,” Pollara president Craig Worden said Wednesday.   
      
   “It does say something about the job that interim leader John Fraser has   
   done,” said Worden, noting the Liberals will elect a new chief at a March 7   
   delegated convention in Mississauga.   
      
   MPPs Michael Coteau and Mitzie Hunter, former minister Steven Del Duca, past   
   candidates Kate Graham and Alvin Tedjo, and lawyer Brenda Hollingsworth are   
   competing in the contest.   
      
   “The Liberals have returned to first place for the first time in many, many   
   years,” the pollster said, pointing out the Grits trailed in most surveys in   
   their final years in office.   
      
   He said there could be a halo effect from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s   
   Liberals who won 79 of Ontario’s 121 federal seats in the October election.   
      
   Two years ago, Premier Doug Ford’s Tories ended a provincial Liberal dynasty   
   that dated back to 2003 under former premier Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen   
   Wynne, with a landslide victory.   
      
   “The Ford government reached a low point in the spring of 2019 and they’ve   
   attempted a reset and they’ve been successful at stopping the bleeding,”   
   he said, referring to Ford’s June cabinet shuffle and subsequent staff   
   changes after a cronyism    
   scandal.   
      
   “But the reset hasn’t taken hold. They haven’t reconnected with voters,   
   but they have held steady since the spring. Now it’s a question of whether   
   they can rebound in the polls.”   
   [---]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)