SAFE Surrey Coalition mayoral candidate Doug McCallum holds the upper hand over Surrey First contender Linda Hepner and independent Barinder Rasode with five weeks to go in the Surrey mayoral campaign, a new Insights West poll has found.

Among those who selected a candidate, Doug McCallum is in first place with 40%, followed by Linda Hepner with 32%, Barinder Rasode with 21%, John Edwards with 7% and Vikram Bajwa with 1%.

When asked which one of the three main mayoral candidates would be the best person to handle specific matters, McCallum holds a slight edge on six issues: city finances and taxation (18%), economic development (18%), transportation (18%), crime (17%), development (17%) and housing (16%).

Hepner is ahead on three issues: parks and recreation (17%), arts and culture (16%), and the environment (15%).

McCallum and Hepner are tied on who would be the best candidate to deal with poverty (12%).

The poll clearly shows that McCallum has the momentum at this stage and that Hepner and her Surrey First team are in trouble.

On the race for City Council, 38% of Surrey residents say they are likely to give at least one of their votes to Surrey First, while 36% would give at least one vote to the Safe Surrey Coalition. Three-in-ten residents (31%) are likely to support independent candidates.

Quite clearly, the Surrey first team can forget about sweeping the election. Quite obviously, Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts saw the writing on the wall and decided to bolt by announcing that she would be running at the federal level with the Conservative Party.

The poll will give McCallum a further boost.

Rasode apparently lost advantage by unnecessarily delaying her official announcement of running for mayor.

IN the online survey of a representative sample of Surrey residents, 55% of respondents say crime is the most important issue facing the city—a 10-point increase since a survey conducted by Insights West in July. Transportation is a distant second at 14%, followed by economic development (9%) and poverty (6%).

Only 9% of Surrey residents say they are following the electoral campaign “very closely” and a further 42% are doing so “moderately closely.” Half of Surrey residents (49%) are either following the campaign “not too closely” or “not closely at all.”

Practically half of Surrey residents (48%) are undecided at this stage of the municipal campaign.

Among decided voters, McCallum’s support is highest among male residents (46%), people aged 18-to-34 (42%) and those aged 35-to-54 (41%), while Hepner holds the lead among women (36%) and those aged 55 and over (41%).