The problem with this approval metrics is that they generally represent the upper band of a candidate's support. People (even those who have zero intention of voting for the mayor) can answer yes to this question as long they believe the mayor has sufficiently kept the lights on at City Hall without any major disaster. It doesn't mean they intend to vote for him.
A more representative question would ask people what their voting intentions are. When they're asked that that we know that less than 40% of people say they would even consider thinking about voting for Ford. Furthermore, only 1/4 of people believe that mayor Ford should remain in office.
And of course, when you ask people if they will vote for Ford against a list of candidates (Chow, Tory etc...), the amount of people who say they'll vote for him quickly falls to anywhere from 20% up to 35%.
In other words, the man opinion of the average Torontonian would be something along the lines of, "The City of Toronto hasn't totally gone to shit under his tenure, so I do approve of the job Mayor Ford has done. However the city deserves a better leader than this. I have no intention of considering voting for him and I'd appreciate it if he would step down as mayor."
