Toronto votes today: Chow and Bradford neck-and-neck as about 2.14 million voters cast ballots until 8 p.m.

Toronto voters head to the polls on Monday, October 26, 2026, to elect a mayor, city councillors and school board trustees for the next four years. Polling stations are open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., with more than 1,350 voting locations operating across the city and about 2.14 million people eligible to vote. The City Clerk certified 361 candidates: 53 for mayor, 190 for city council and 118 for school board trustee, though the mayoral race is widely seen as a two-way contest between incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow and Councillor Brad Bradford.

Polls disagree, nobody leads clearly

Pre-election polls did not agree on a leader. A Nanos Research poll conducted exclusively for CP24 and CTV News Toronto last week put Chow 3.2 percentage points ahead among decided voters, within the survey's margin of error. A Mainstreet Research poll of 1,000 Toronto adults from October 16 to 18 put Bradford at 48.9 per cent and Chow at 47.5 per cent, with 13 per cent undecided and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 points. With the two polls pointing in opposite directions and both gaps inside the margin of error, the race is effectively too close to call, and turnout and get-out-the-vote operations are expected to decide it.

Advance voting nearly doubled

Voter engagement has been unusually strong: 222,550 people cast ballots during six days of advance voting, nearly double the 115,911 advance votes recorded in the 2022 municipal election. Across Ontario, nearly 12 million people are eligible to vote in municipal elections on the same day, filling about 2,800 positions.

The two platforms, side by side

Chow has campaigned on keeping future property-tax increases near inflation, cutting transit fares for frequent riders, providing free school lunches and expanding affordable housing. Bradford has pledged a first-year property-tax freeze, a line-by-line external spending review, scrapping the land-transfer tax on homes under $1.1 million and hiring 1,000 police officers. The campaign has centred on affordability, housing, property taxes, transportation and public safety.

Results after 8 p.m.

Once polls close at 8 p.m., CP24 and CTV News Toronto will carry live results and analysis. Given how close the polls are, an early call is far from guaranteed. Toronto's mayoralty has been held by incumbents since 1998, so a Bradford victory would break that run.