![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/JMI_Vancouver_election_charts_4-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe poll was fielded August 31 to September 11 among 607 Vancouver adults, including 336 decided mayoral voters. The margin of error for the decided mayoral voters is \u00b15.3 points, 19 times in 20. Our near miss was Allam, whom we had at 10% against a 5% result, though our interviews after the September 8 consolidation had him at 8%, capturing some of the decline in his support that continued through election day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anticipating that candidates would withdraw<\/a>, the poll asked each voter’s second choice. After the Allen and Azaroff withdrawals, we reassigned respondents who had chosen either to their second choice. Our mayoral results here and in our pre-election prediction reflect that reassignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We fielded in the days before and after the withdrawals of COPE’s Stephanie Allen (September 2<\/a>) and OneCity’s William Azaroff (September 8<\/a>). Both exits were widely reported, and both were meant to consolidate the progressive vote against Ken Sim. Studying our data, we expected Fry to win. Barring another significant event, we were confident our numbers would hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our council prediction included nine of the 10 councillors elected. It also accurately found ABC Vancouver, which held six of the council’s 10 seats going into the election, being all but wiped out. We anticipated one ABC councillor, Sarah Kirby-Yung. The one ABC candidate elected was her colleague Mike Klassen, who was just outside our top 10. We said at the time that the race for the final seats was tight, and it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We predicted nine of the 10 councillors elected:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two firms polled the Vancouver mayoral race after the Allen and Azaroff withdrawals: Leger<\/a> and Canada Pulse Insights, reported by CityNews<\/a>. To compare all three polls on the same basis, we removed undecided voters from each. Leger’s headline figures (Fry 23%, Sim 19%) included 36% undecided, so we repercentaged on their decided voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leger deserves credit for what its tabulations showed. Its headline described a fluid race, with 36% of Vancouver voters undecided. But among its respondents certain to vote (100% likely), Fry strengthened to 34%, as Leger’s report noted. With undecideds excluded, that works out to Fry at 46%, within two points of his election result. That group was small, so it is understandable that this was not the headline. Our recalculation also puts Sim at 26% among those voters, against his 33% election result. Still, something much closer to the election outcome was evident deeper in Leger’s findings. With a larger sample, Fry’s win might well have become their prediction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Canada Pulse Insights\u2019 original release<\/a> found Fry and Sim statistically tied (28% to 27%, and 29% to 28% among its most likely voters), and noted that undecided but leaning voters could \u201ctip the scales by either a little or a lot.\u201d After the election, its CEO attributed<\/a> the miss to a late wave of strategic voting and record advance turnout. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Late movement matters in a close race. But both withdrawals came weeks before Canada Pulse Insights\u2019 fieldwork began, and the candidates\u2019 strategy in exiting the race was to consolidate the progressive mayoral vote. Our own poll was in the field as both candidates withdrew, and we reported Fry ahead by 15. Fry\u2019s 15-point lead in the election shows it was not a close race once those candidates exited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we released our results, they were met with skepticism and largely ignored. Yet our poll held. Municipal and small jurisdiction polling is not easy. The approach used for national and provincial election polling does not carry over to a smaller jurisdiction race. Success depends on precise design and sampling: drawing accurate boundaries, asking the right questions, and matching the correct known parameters to the local population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the work our reputation is built on. Most of our municipal and small jurisdiction polling in recent years has been for private clients, so can’t be cited here. Our published polls include Jody Wilson-Raybould’s independent win in Vancouver-Granville in 2019, Mike Hurley’s win over Derek Corrigan in the 2018 Burnaby mayoral race, the 2017 provincial election in Kamloops-North Thompson, and Vancouver mayoral and council races (2010 to 2014). Each predicted the outcome. This year’s Vancouver mayoral and council predictions now join that list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The election also said something about what voters wanted. In our next post, we look at both sides of that result: why ABC\u2019s campaign, built around public safety, missed what voters cared about, and why the progressive campaigns connected with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VANCOUVER, BC \u2013 October 23, 2026 \u2013 In September, we released results from our City of Vancouver election poll: one for the mayoral race and one for the council race. A month later, the election confirmed both. Mayor We had Pete Fry clearly in front and Ken Sim second. That is how it finished, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,334,290,321,3,195,20,6,50,332,8,9],"tags":[382,58,41,46,384,392,14,30,391],"class_list":["post-6542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-by-barb-justason","category-city-of-vancouver","category-featured","category-featured-featured","category-justason-polls","category-mayoral-support","category-vancouver-city-council","category-party-support","category-politicians","category-polls","category-polls-and-surveys","category-vancouver","tag-abc","tag-barb-justason","tag-civic-election","tag-cope","tag-ken-sim","tag-pete-fry","tag-vancouver-2","tag-vancouver-city-council-2","tag-vancouver-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6542"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6569,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542\/revisions\/6569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Council<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Council-JMI_Vancouver_election_charts_4-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHow the final polls performed<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.justasonmi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Pollsters-JMI_Vancouver_election_charts_4-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhy Justason poll held<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
What comes next<\/h4>\n\n\n\n