In a post on X on Tuesday, Chris Alexander announced he was ending his campaign to become mayor of Toronto, just an hour before advance polling opened, saying he didn’t believe his campaign had a path to victory.
“I entered this race to put serious ideas on the table: a property tax freeze, City-built affordable housing, a TTC turnaround, and a real plan for homelessness,” he said in a statement.
“Those ideas were heard. Some have been adopted by others. If they get delivered, we have accomplished something.”
Polls indicated Alexander would have taken 10 per cent of the vote, now leaving the race largely to Brad Bradford and Olivia Chow.
He also noted that he’s not endorsing anyone and trusts his supporters to look at the other candidate’s platforms, ask themselves what their policies would cost and to decide who they want to vote for.
He thanked his volunteers and claimed he ran a “centrist” platform assessed by Vote Compass as being “more progressive than the current mayor’s.”
Alexander faced pressure to drop out from politicos and commentators online after a Mainstreet Research poll showed that Chris Alexander would only get an estimated 7.2 per cent of the vote.
In the same poll, Chow was polling at 38.1 per cent, while Brad Bradford had an estimated 32.2 per cent of the vote.
Online commentators criticized Alexander’s campaign, calling it a “vote split” that would likely result in Chow’s re-election.
Finally!