This article is an adaptation of Kyla Ronellenfitsch’s Substack post on the state of the Ontario Liberal Party Leadership.

This article dives into the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. Basically, should Bonnie Crombie remain leader, or should she go? The polling featured in this article mirrors the same experiment regarding Justin Trudeau’s leadership in May 2024.

Context

This poll has two sections, and they should be evaluated differently. The first focuses on voters’ impressions of Bonnie Crombie and whether there is an appetite for change in the OLP leadership. The data in this section is concrete. Voters have had a year and a half to observe Crombie as leader (and more time in her other roles), including during the campaign. They have a record to respond to.

The second part of the study is based on hypotheticals. It’s more of a signal than a source of truth. The poll tried to uncover how voters might respond to 7 potential candidates. These include:

And wildcard picks:

If you’re unfamiliar with any of these folks, their bios, which were used in the survey, are included later in this article. It’s important to understand that participants are responding to the idea of these candidates. Their appeal could collapse under stress or expand beyond what this poll shows. We would need to see how they perform in a leader campaign to truly know how voters would respond. However, this poll gives a good first read of potential enthusiasm.

Overall, Ontarians’ impression of Bonnie Crombie can be described as a collective “meh”. 28% of Ontarians have a favourable impression of her, 29% have an unfavourable impression, a plurality (33%) view her neutrally, and 10% have never heard of her. Just 1 in 4........

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