New Mainstreet poll shows tight 3-way race for mayor of Saskatoon

A new Mainstreet/Postmedia poll is showing a very close contest in Saskatoon's mayoral race.

The poll shows Don Atchison is leading the race with 26 per cent. Charlie Clark is coming in at 23 per cent, followed by Kelley Moore at 22 per cent. Support for Atchison is down by three per cent, Clark support fell by one per cent, while Moore's support is up by four per cent.

However, Mainstreet Research said the big story coming out of this poll is the number of undecided voters. The undecided vote has increased by six per cent, to 28 per cent of those polled.

• Don Atchison maintains lead in close mayoral race: poll

"(It's) the opposite of what we would expect as the campaign progresses," said David Valentin, executive vice-president of Mainstreet Research. "It's the large pool of undecided voters who would make the difference in the election campaign."

The poll also shows interesting data when it comes to the candidates' favourability ratings. 51 per cent of people said they had an unfavourable view of Don Atchison, while Charlie Clark comes in second at 29 per cent unfavourable, followed by Moore at 11 per cent.

"Moore stands to benefit if either Atchison or Clark's support drops but it would be Charlie Clark who would be the primary beneficiary if Moore's support were to falter," said Valentin. "We're seeing volatile numbers right now with a high undecided rate and mainly soft support for the mayoral candidates."

Support for Devon Hein, the last candidate to enter the race, sits at one per cent support.

Mainstreet surveyed a random sample of 843 Saskatoon Residents by Smart IVRTM on Sept.27, 2016. A mixture of landlines and cell phones were surveyed. Margin of error: +/- 3.38%, 19 times out of 20. Results were weighed by age and gender based on the 2011 Canadian Census.