Plante, Coderre tied in race to become Montreal's next mayor: poll

Montreal -

The two top contenders for mayor of Montreal are in a statistical tie with less than two weeks left before voters cast their ballots in the municipal election. 

According to a Léger-Le Journal-Montreal Gazette poll released Thursday, Mayor Valerie Plante and Ensemble Montreal's Denis Coderre are in a dead heat for the city's top job. Both are tied at 36 per cent for voting intentions. 

Meanwhile, Mouvement Montreal leader Balarama Holness has the support of 12 per cent of voters, according to the poll. 

Six per cent of respondents said they'd vote for a different candidate than the top three picks and nine per cent said they were undecided.

HOUSING, ENVIRONMENT TOP ISSUES FOR VOTERS: POLL

Rental costs and home ownership was listed as the top campaign issue, according to people who responded to the survey. Twenty-three per cent of respondents said housing was the number one issue for them. 

Behind housing was the environment, with voters raising issues of protection of green spaces and single-use plastics regulation as thier second-most important election issue, followed by the economic revival of the downtown and commercial arteries. 

Other key issues for voters, according to the poll, include gun control and funding for Montreal police, municipal taxes, public service, and homelessness. 

Language is also set to become a hot button topic as the biggest parties share polarizing views on the English-French debate in the city. Plante said she is seeking to promote French in the metropolis, while Holness is seeking bilingual status for Montreal. Meanwhile, Coderre dismissed the idea of a referendum on language, calling it “too divisive.”

The poll showed that incumbent Mayor Plante's main opponent, Coderre, has the most support among anglophone voters. Of the 90 anglophones surveyed, he had 38 per cent of their support, while Plante had 28 per cent, the poll showed. Holness came in third with 12 per cent of the anglophone vote.

"Without Holness, Denis Coderre would win because he would seek the vote of non-French speakers," Jean-Marc Léger, president of the Léger firm, was quoted as saying in the Journal de Montreal. 

The poll resembles others released in recent weeks that put Plante and Coderre on the path for a real showdown in the Nov. 7 election -- one that has been made all the more interesting with Holness entering the ring and chipping away at support for Ensemble Montreal. 

The poll was conducted online between Oct. 21 and 26 and solicited responses from 600 people.