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Six months after his narrow election victory, a new poll shows that Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas appears to be enjoying a “honeymoon” with Calgarians, while many have yet to form an opinion.
The poll, conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights, asked Calgarians how they feel when they hear from Farkas. Sentiments were positive for 44 per cent of respondents, the results show.
According to the poll, 10 per cent of respondents said they felt excited, while 34 per cent noted they were comfortable with the mayor.
In terms of negative sentiments, the poll showed six per cent felt frustrated, while just one per cent felt angry.
“The majority of Calgarians did not vote for him in the last election campaign, but he’s been able to at least get them to the point where even if they didn’t vote for him, they’re at least comfortable with what he’s doing,” Pollara chief strategy officer Dan Arnold told Global News.
Farkas was elected mayor in last fall’s municipal election after defeating runner-up Sonya Sharp by a narrow 616 votes after a recount.
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He secured 26.1 per cent of the vote in an election where just 39.04 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot.
According to Arnold, Farkas is “off to a good start” in his first six months of governing while “not rocking the boat.”
“He’s really expanded beyond, by leaps and bounds, above what he actually got in the last election campaign,” Arnold said.
However, the poll showed that while eight per cent of respondents had no feelings regarding the mayor, 40 per cent said they “don’t know enough” to provide an opinion.
Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, said the poll’s results show a mixed reception for the mayor.
“The good news for Jeromy Farkas is that his approval is in positive territory,” she said. “What is quite highly problematic is the number of people who really don’t have a sense that they know him or really have a basis to form an opinion.”
When asked how familiar they are with Farkas, 21 per cent of respondents said they knew “a lot about” him, while 42 per cent said they knew “something” about the mayor. Twenty-two per cent of respondents said they knew “very little” about Farkas and another 15 per cent said they hadn’t heard of him.
According to Williams, the results are “a bit of a mystery” as the mayor has been visible in very public matters, including the second rupture in less than two years of the Bearspaw feeder main and its subsequent repairs.
“There was a sense during the election that voters didn’t know these candidates very well, and it doesn’t look like that’s improved a lot since the election,” Williams said. “It may be because there’s so many attention-getting problems that are happening at the national and the provincial level.”
Farkas was first elected to city council representing Ward 11 in 2017 and ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2021.
“They say in politics that you can’t make a second impression but I was really grateful for the opportunity Calgarians gave me to be able to serve here and now as mayor,” Farkas told Global News. “Our city council team is focused on being just that: a team, focused on the issues that matter the most to Calgarians.
Farkas said he believes the polling is a reflection of the work council has done in its term so far, including budget deliberations that ended with a lowered municipal property tax increase.
When asked about the number of Calgarians who don’t know enough about him to form an opinion, Farkas brought up the city’s communication during the feeder main break.
“It really showed us that we need to provide Calgarians with all the information that we have access to, the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said. “Certainly, as mayor, that’s my commitment is to reach every single Calgarian to make them feel included in the decisions that we do here at the city.”
The online poll was conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights with 1,151 voting-aged Calgarians between March 16 and 25. It has a margin of error of ±2.9 per cent (19 times out of 20).
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