New Democratic Party candidate Leila Dance is holding the lead in the eastern Winnipeg riding of Elmwood-Transcona, with Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds not far behind as votes continue to be counted in the byelection triggered by the resignation of the riding’s longtime NDP representative.
Preliminary results show Dance ahead with a total of 10,502 votes, as Reynolds trails with 9,308 with more than 90 per cent of polls reporting — 173 of 191.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre has 1,017 votes, while People’s Party candidate Sarah Couture has 285, Green candidate Nicolas Geddert has 282 and the Canadian Future Party’s Zbig Strycharz has 98.
NDP candidate Dance is trying to hold on to this seat for her party, which has won Elmwood-Transcona in every vote since its inception except for 2011, when the Conservatives won a majority government under Stephen Harper.
Conservative candidate Reynolds’s campaign aimed to unseat the NDP by drawing attention to the two-year confidence-and-supply deal between the New Democrats and the governing Liberal Party, which the NDP said it was ending earlier this month.
The Liberals have not finished higher than third place in Elmwood-Transcona since 1997.
The seat was left vacant after Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with Wab Kinew’s provincial NDP government in Manitoba. Blaikie won three elections for the NDP and served more than eight years as MP.
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According to Elections Canada, 10,032 Elmwood-Transcona voters, or 14 per cent of the registered voters in the riding, cast a ballot in advance polls.
Voting opened Monday at 8:30 a.m. and closed at 8:30 p.m. CT.
Elmwood-Transcona is one of two Canadian ridings where byelections are taking place.
A byelection is also being held in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, a Montreal riding most recently held by former Liberal cabinet minister David Lametti.
There are several ways to watch the results of both byelections.
An online special is streaming live starting at 8 p.m. CT. on Monday.
Power & Politics host David Cochrane is guiding viewers through live results, as a panel of insiders breaks down what they mean for the looming federal election.
Mélanie Richer, a former communications director for the NDP, told Cochrane the Winnipeg byelection is expected to be close — and an early test of whether the federal party and its leader Jagmeet Singh’s message that “it’s me versus the Conservatives in the next election” is resonating.
Meanwhile, Fred DeLorey, a former national Conservative campaign manager, said the fact that the race is so close in a riding like Elmwood-Transcona — which considering its history he said “should be an NDP stronghold” — shows how that party’s message has been resonating.
“This is obviously a competitive seat now, and it shouldn’t be,” he said. “The fact the Conservative party is doing well in suburban, urban Winnipeg I think says a lot for the party and for Mr. [Pierre] Poilievre’s message, in that it is resonating and working here.”
Greg MacEachern, a former Liberal ministerial staffer, said he was interested by the Conservatives’ choice of a candidate more on the labour side — setting up a race between Reynolds, a construction electrician, and Dance, a local non-profit and business leader.
“One of the things I’m going to watch tonight … is whether or not that was a play that they can actually carry through and [that] actually benefits for them,” MacEachern said.
The special is streaming live on CBCNews.ca, the CBC News App, CBC Gem, CBC News Explore and the CBC News YouTube page.
CBCNews.ca will have the latest updates, up-to-the-minute results and full political reaction to the results.