George Smitherman - Toronto Mayoral Election

Toronto Mayoral Election

On September 9, 2009, Smitherman strongly suggested that he would be running for mayor of Toronto in the upcoming 2010 mayoral election. He emphasized that any official announcements would not come before "the unofficial campaign season municipally begins in the new year."

On November 8, Smitherman announced his resignation from the provincial cabinet in order to run for mayor. He remained in the legislature as a backbench MPP until January 4, 2010.

In April 2010, Smitherman's campaign manager, Jeff Bangs, resigned and was replaced by Bruce Davis, chair of the Toronto District School Board and a veteran of local politics.

On August 21, 2010, the Ontario Liberal Party began distributing pamphlets, listing Smitherman's provincial record and endorsements, to 75,000 identified Liberal voters. This partisan endorsement led to speculation that Smitherman's political fortunes were connected with those of the Liberal provincial government. Several other mayoral candidates criticized Premier McGuinty and the provincial Liberals for jumping into the race.

Smitherman admitted telling a volunteer working for rival Rocco Rossi to "screw off". Smitherman claims he was set up by Rossi's campaign and he said the young woman tried to hand him a paper questioning his work with youth before a debate.

Smitherman's campaign has been criticized for swaying first to the left and then the right. After Labour Day, he made fiscal promises to freeze property taxes for a year and cut down on reckless spending.

Following the results of a Nanos Research poll, released on September 19, Smitherman made the following statement "The polling that we've seen tells us that if an election was held now, Rob Ford would be our mayor," Smitherman said. "That obviously provokes a certain distaste and reinforces for us that we need to work harder for the values of our city." The poll put Ford's level of support at 45.8% among decided voters. Smitherman held 21.3%, Joe Pantalone 16.8%, Rocco Rossi stood at 9.7% and Sarah Thomson at 6.4%. Smitherman vowed to lead the "anybody-but-Ford" movement and encouraged strategic voting.

In October, Smitherman picked up support. Sarah Thomson dropped out and endorsed Smitherman. Smitherman and his staff were also pressing some of Rocco Rossi’s key supporters to switch; Rossi soon dropped out due to being unable to improve poll numbers but did not endorse any other candidates. Former Toronto (pre-amalgamation) mayors David Crombie and Art Eggleton also endorsed Smitherman. Several left-leaning councilors who were normally allies of Joe Pantalone, Joe Mihevc, Adam Vaughan, and Pam McConnell, decided to back Smitherman's campaign instead. Smitherman urged strategic voting and repeatedly asserted that "a vote for Joe Pantalone is a vote for Rob Ford". Smitherman also left a voice-mail for outgoing Mayor David Miller, hoping that Miller would persuade Pantalone to bow out, but Miller never returned the call (back in 2003, Barbara Hall's campaign used back-channel efforts to discourage Miller's run for mayor) and gave a public endorsement of Pantalone instead. Following the results of the October 18 Angus Reid Public Opinion Poll, Smitherman and Ford were practically tied for first place, with Ford at 41% and Smitherman at 40%.

On election day, Smitherman finished second with 35.607% of the vote compared to Ford who won 47.114%.