Mayor Brian Bowman still popular with voters despite waning approval rating

A new poll suggests Mayor Brian Bowman remains very popular among Winnipeg voterseven though his approval rating has slipped over the past year.

A Probe Research poll of 404 Winnipeg adults conducted in late June and early Julysuggests 69 per cent of Winnipeggers approve of the performance ofBowman as mayor.

That figure represents a decline from the 77-per-cent approval rating Bowman received in a September 2015 Probe Research poll.

Question:"Brian Bowman has been mayor of Winnipeg for almost two years. Thinking of his performance as mayor, would you say, overall, that you strongly approve of his performance, you moderately approve, you moderately disapprove or you strongly disapprove of Brian Bowman's performance as mayor?"

Probe Research president Scott MacKay said the decline from the end of Bowman's first year in office to the home stretch of his second year is overshadowed by the fact less than a third of Winnipeg voters appears to disapprove of his performance.

"Well it's definitely a downward trend, but the more important thing is that even at today's level, it's almost seven in 10. It's a very, very strong level of popularity,"MacKaysaid in an interview on Wednesday.

"He was skyhigh last fall at about almost 80 per cent. Now, he's at almost 70 per cent, but I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that Brian Bowman remains extremely popular."

The Probe Research poll alsosuggests Bowman's approval rating doesn't differ much among voters of different age groups but is slightly higher among better-educated and higher-earning voters.

There is a more marked split in support among men and women. The poll suggests 75 per cent of women approve of the mayor's performance, compared to 63 per cent of men.

MacKay surmises this is due to Bowman's support for progressive policies such as completing rapid-transit lines as well asbike-and-pedestrian paths.

"You see Mr. Bowman getting disproportionate levels of support from women, which may say something about the way he's really being perceived as more of a progressive than as a conservative," saidMacKay, who notes that male voters lean more conservative while female lean more progressive.

"When wefirstgot to know Mr. Bowman, there were theserumblings that he really had come from a more conservative place," MacKay continued. "Clearly, I think the civic electorate does not regard him as a conservative at the moment."

Poll popularity less motivating than mandate, mayor says

After being informed about his approval rating,Bowman said he is more motivated to carry out his mandate than he is bypoll results.

Thatmandate, he said, involvesfixingroads,completing rapid-transitcorridorsand creating more bike-and-pedestrian corridors.

"I interact with Winnipeggers each and every day who give me positive feedback giveme constructive criticism on things we can do better, and I'm always listening to that," Bowman said Wednesday.

After a somewhat rocky first year that saw him clash with True North Sports & Entertainment chairman Mark Chipman over a downtown development, Bowman has steered more clear of controversy during his second year in office.

• Brian Bowman reflects on 2015, first year as Winnipeg mayor
• True North's Mark Chipman fires back at mayor, puts Carlton Street project on hold

"I'm trying not [to] just settle into the jobbut continue to increase the pace of positive change we're implementinghere. It's certainly been a good learningexperience, I thinkfor all new membersof council, myself included," the mayor said.

Bowman's approval rating mirrors Katz's

Bowman's firstyear approval rating of 77 per cent was similar to former mayor Sam Katz's approval rating after one year, MacKay said.

But little polling of Katz's approval rating was conducted until much later into his time in office, preventing apples-to-apples comparisons between the two mayors, MacKay said.

"I think we started to look at him later, and bythen, the wheels had really started to fall off for Mr. Katz," said MacKay, referring to the scandals that plagued the former mayor during his final years in office.

The new Probe Researchpollwas conducted between June 30 and July 4, 2016, usingmembers of Probe Research's online panel as a sample. The panel's members, in turn, wererecruited through Probe Research's quarterly, random telephone survey.

As an online poll, no statistical margin of error can be ascribed to the new survey,but Probe saysa margin of error on a probability sample of 404 is4.87 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Probe conducted minor statistical weighting of the poll to ensure the demographics of the sample matchthoseof the city's population overall.