TORONTO VOTES: Sarah Thomson bows out of mayor’s race, registers for Ward 20

Last month, Thomson asked supporters through a website poll if she should switch her goal to a council seat, and 88 per cent approved, saying, "run for council, you can make a difference there," she said in an interview after making the change.

As a councillor in the downtown constituency Adam Vaughan left after winning a recent federal byelection, Thomson said, she could fight for the ideas she championed as a mayoral candidate, among them securing additional dedicated funding for public transit and imposing road tolls on outsiders using Toronto roads.

"People didn’t want that to disappear," she said.

As a mayoral candidate in 2010, Thomson dropped out of the race too late to have her name removed from the ballot, but asked supporters to back George Smitherman in an effort to prevent a Rob Ford victory.

She said her second experience running for mayor was different. Editorials – after she appeared at a campaign-launching event in March in a horse and carriage - "were all about my hair and how I look," said Thomson, who has been sporting dreadlocks.

"There was bias from the very beginning," she charged, arguing political reporters tried to choose a candidate they believed could successfully challenge Ford.

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Trying to get more coverage, Thomson who had also presented herself as "the only Liberal" in the race – in the 2011 Ontario election, she came second in the provincial Trinity-Spadina riding – admitted she "resorted to the horse" again, arriving at a Ford family celebration in Scarborough this summer on horseback.

Thomson, who attended Ford Fest at Thomson Park with a group of volunteers dressed in red campaign T-shirts, said she wanted to show she was not afraid of Ford.

It was like walking into a lion’s den and "angering that lion," she added, recalling that she left the park after some of Ford’s volunteers – "guys in black T-shirts" – started "agitating the crowd" against her.

Thomson’s campaign remained on the margins, until late August, when her campaign released a poll claiming her support to be in the "double digits." Observers said the poll was not credible, due to its small size and leading questions.

Though insisting her support was on the rise, Thomson said the poll was for internal use and not meant to be published. The campaign had trouble finding a pollster who wasn’t already working for one of her rivals, she said.

As for her supporters outside Ward 20, where she was one of 28 candidates registered on Tuesday, Thomson said they should think about "who would make a good mayor and how to get them in."

She said she would support whoever has the best chance to defeat Ford, and call on any candidate running third behind Ford to transfer their support to a candidate running second behind the mayor.

Thomson, however, did not take the opportunity to endorse John Tory, the current frontrunner, whose two sons supported the later stages of her 2010 campaign, George Tory as her manager and John Tory Jr. as a strategist

"Anything can happen in six weeks," she said.

At city hall on Tuesday, Ford shrugged off Thomson’s plan to support his most-likely opponent, saying he wished her "all the best."

Thomson, who said she and her husband are looking for a home in Ward 20, said she wasn’t concerned about standing out among so many candidates for Vaughan’s seat.

"They say with a candidate that’s well-known – like Rob Ford – the more candidates in the race, the better," she said.