It’s a blistering hot Sunday afternoon, and Rob Ford, the man who wants to be Toronto’s next mayor, is on fire as he glad-hands through a North York neighbourhood. As in rock star on fire.

The arrival of the burly candidate, clad in a white dress shirt and tie, has literally stopped traffic on Finch Ave. W. Cars horns blare support. A woman shouts through her car window: “God bless you.” The driver of a cream-coloured Rolls-Royce offers to give Ford a similar vehicle.

He has even inspired some residents to vote for the first time. “I really like your program,” Derek McIntosh, 30, gushes to Ford, who is the frontrunner in the mayoral race. He said Ford’s campaign promises, which revolve mainly around cutting public spending, have made him pay attention to municipal politics. He’s convinced that Toronto city hall is corrupt and Ford will fix it.

“I watched the last council debates on TV and it just looks kind of greasy,” McIntosh said.

Those who dismiss Ford’s surge in the polls as a summer blip or deride his platform as a doomed bid to tap suburban alienation should witness the reactions the pink-faced politician elicits when he campaigns door-to-door in the suburbs.

Residents don’t pepper him with questions about a decade-old drunk-driving and marijuana arrest or corner him on a recent rap on the knuckles from the city’s integrity commissioner, who accused him of using his council office to drum up support for his football charity.

Instead, they break into broad smiles. They extend their hands. They pledge to vote for him.

Combined with recent polls that give him a sizable lead over his closest rival, George Smitherman, the idea that Ford is within grasp of the mayor’s chain of office is gaining traction, especially in the suburbs. However, experts have cautioned that it’s still too early to call a winner in the Oct. 25 vote. They also note that support for Ford, who was city councillor for 10 years in Ward 2, Etobicoke North, isn’t nearly as strong downtown.

“I’m not sure he’d get the same response if he was strolling down College St. or Bloor and Spadina,” said University of Toronto political scientist Nelson Wiseman.

Wiseman also noted that while Ford is first in the polls, he is not way out in front. And there is plenty of time for his rivals to catch up.

But on Robert Hicks Dr. in North York, support for Ford is near universal. In an enclave where most residents are first-generation immigrants, they don’t challenge the candidate’s most recent headline-grabbing assertion: that Toronto can barely provide services to its 2.7 million residents and doesn’t need more people to move here.

At one house, a South Asian man asks Ford to expand on his immigration position. Ford barely completes one sentence when the man declares: “You’ve got my vote, sir.”

In person, Ford, 41, is focused and matter of fact, even brusque. There is no small talk as he trudges from house to house, no attempt to sugarcoat or water down controversial policies such as the immigration statement.

Ford’s comments were based on Toronto’s official plan, which predicts that about one million people will move to the city in the next 10 years. Toronto can’t handle that number, Ford said.

“It’s been a really sensitive issue,” Ford said, wiping sweat from his brow. But many immigrants agree with him, he said.

“They’re looking for jobs. They can’t find one. They can’t find a family doctor ... Congestion on city streets is worse than it’s ever been.

“As mayor, I want to take care of the city right now. I don’t want any more people,” Ford tells a man in a car who has pulled over to chat.

“I totally agree with you,” the driver says.