Bonnie Crombie officially registers as Ontario Liberal leadership candidate

Bonnie Crombie, the front-runner in the race for the Ontario Liberal leadership, has officially registered as a candidate.

One day before her splashy campaign launch, the Mississauga mayor quietly filed her papers to Elections Ontario on Tuesday afternoon.

Crombie joins Liberal MPs Nate Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York) and Yasir Naqvi (Ottawa Centre), and Liberal MPP Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands) as official contestants.

MPP Adil Shamji (Don Valley East) is also considering a bid. MPP Stephanie Bowman (Don Valley West) announced Tuesday she wouldn't be a candidate.

Bowman is expected to endorse Crombie.

An Abacus Data poll for the Star found the mayor, who was re-elected in Mississauga last fall with more than 78 per cent of the vote, leads her rivals in favourability.

Among Liberal voters, she had an overall tally of plus 26 per cent - 34 per cent have a positive view of her compared with eight per cent negative, 28 per cent neutral and 31 per cent unsure.

Erskine-Smith was at plus 10 per cent - 17 per cent have a positive view of him with seven per cent negative, 30 per cent neutral and 46 per cent unsure.

Naqvi was at plus eight per cent - 15 per cent have a positive view of him, seven per cent negative, 34 per cent neutral and 44 per cent were unsure.

Hsu was at plus 10 per cent - 16 per cent positive, six per cent negative, 34 per cent neutral and 44 per cent unsure.

Using online panels based on the Lucid exchange platform, Abacus surveyed 1,000 people between last Tuesday and Sunday.

Opt-in polls cannot be assigned a margin of error, but for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would be have one of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Crombie will kick off her campaign at Metalworks in Mississauga on Wednesday afternoon.

She will remain as mayor until the Liberal leadership is determined - using a one-member, one-vote ranked-ballot system - on Dec. 2.

Candidates for the party leadership must pay a $100,000 entry fee plus a $25,000 refundable deposit.

Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie