First poll since the election gives Rob Ford a 60 per cent approval rating—but people love his policies even more

Some other details from the poll released this afternoon:

• Ford is most popular in Scarborough (with a landslide 71 per cent, proving that as-yet-imaginary subways are good politics); still gets 60+ per cent in North York and Etobicoke.
• His only thumbs-down is from Toronto-East York, with 54 per cent disapproval rating. We’re only surprised at how unsurprising that all is.
• Declaring the TTC an essential service is even more popular than Ford himself, with 72 per cent approval rating.
• Private money for the Sheppard subway is basically tied with Ford at 61 per cent, though more popular in North York and Scarborough (no shocker there).
• About the only Ford policy that gets the thumbs-down is his $3-million contract for efficiency consultants, which gets 62 per cent disapproval.

Some of the questions use some questionable language—respondents were asked what they thought about “jobs for life” for city workers, and while private cash is said to build subways “faster” than public money—an open question at the very least—there’s no mention of the fact that the city will move fewer people for its money with subways over Transit City. Then there’s the fact that while these numbers are very high, they’re still (as Globe and Mail reporter Kelly Grant points out) well below the whopping 82 per cent approval rating David Miller had a few months in to his first term.

All that said, the results don’t seem obviously absurd, and we’re happy that the city has left fictional pro-Ford polls in the distant past.

• Forum Research poll on Toronto politics [via]

(Image: Ford, Shaun Merritt)