New Democratic Party candidate Leila Dance is celebrating victory in the eastern Winnipeg riding of Elmwood-Transcona, with Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceding defeat in a speech to supporters as votes continue to be counted in the byelection triggered by the resignation of the riding’s longtime NDP representative.
“While this certainly was not the result we were hoping for, I’m proud of the work we did here,” Reynolds told people gathered to watch the results come in Monday night at Royal George Hotel.
“We were the underdog in this, and we made it a tight race.”
Preliminary results show Dance ahead with a total of 11,216 votes, as Reynolds trails with 10,087 with more than 95 per cent of polls reporting — 183 of 191. CBC News has not yet projected a winner in the byelection.
“I will fight for Elmwood-Transcona,” Dance told supporters at her own byelection event. “I promise to make you all so proud of me, and I will see you in Ottawa.”
As of the latest results, Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre has 1,094 votes in the riding, while People’s Party candidate Sarah Couture has 305, Green candidate Nicolas Geddert has 302 and the Canadian Future Party’s Zbig Strycharz has 103.
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 was also held in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, a Montreal riding most recently held by former Liberal cabinet minister David Lametti.