‘Too close to call’ — Mayor Dave Burgess tied with Shari Decter Hirst: Poll

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This article was published 23/10/2010 (5824 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With less than a week to go before E-Day, Brandon’s incumbent mayor is in a dead heat with his closest challenger, a recent poll suggests.

A Probe Research poll, conducted exclusively for the Brandon Sun earlier this month, has found voter support for this fall’s two primary mayoral candidates, Dave Burgess and Shari Decter Hirst, is too close to call in advance of Wednesday’s municipal election.

Of the 401 Brandon residents asked during a phone interview conducted between Oct. 6 and Oct. 14, Burgess and Decter Hirst received an equal amount of voter support at 49 percent.

Candidates Henry Hansen or Nickolas Avlonitis trailed miles behind Decter Hirst and Burgess, each only garnering one per cent support of those who participated in the poll.

"The race really has been about Dave and Shari," Probe research associate Curtis Brown says. "The other two very much seem to be, from my point of view, ‘also rans.’"

According to Probe’s data, a mayoral race hasn’t been this close in Brandon since the 1997 byelection, when Reg Atkinson defeated seven other candidates to replace outgoing mayor Rick Borotsik. Atkinson slipped past his closest challenger, Dan Munroe, by approximately 200 votes.

And while the recent poll proves that Burgess and Decter Hirst will have to work equally as hard in the election’s final days, the numbers show that Decter Hirst has a definite edge among those individuals already committed to visiting the polls.

Of the 64 per cent of voters who said they were "definitely" going to vote , 52 per cent said they would be voting for Decter Hirst, compared to 46 per cent who said they would be voting for Burgess.

"That is within the poll’s margin of error, but it does suggest that, perhaps, people who say they are going to be planning to vote for Shari Decter Hirst are somewhat more motivated to go to the polls," Brown said.

Decter Hirst’s decision to announce her candidacy a full year out from the election and the aggressive and engaged way she has chosen to run her campaign likely contributed to strong support among decided voters, he suggested.

"If I was Dave Burgess, I would be a little troubled by this," he said. "I think he’s run, from what I’ve observed, a classic incumbent, front-runner campaign … Not really starting in earnest until after Labour Day and only coming out with a few promises here and there … perhaps he should have been out there a little bit more."

The poll also found that Decter Hirst has the majority support of female voters, with 59 per cent of all women included in the poll showing their support for her over Burgess, who received 39 per cent female support.

Conversely, Burgess was the preferred choice of 54 per cent of men polled, compared to Decter Hirst’s 45 per cent support.

Not surprisingly, the poll also found that Decter Hirst enjoyed 65 per cent voter support from people who identified as provincial NDP supporters, while Burgess was supported by 68 per cent of people who identified as supporters of the province’s Progressive Conservative party.

Results of the poll are accurate to plus or minus 4.9 per cent, 95 per cent of the time.

» See Sunday’s Brandon Sun for candidates’ reaction to the poll.