10 ridings to watch on election day in Ontario

TORONTO — Thursday is election day in Ontario, and while the polls have consistently had the Progressive Conservatives cruising to re-election, there are various ridings across the province in which the results may come down to the wire or have broader implications. Here are 10 ridings to watch on election night:

Mississauga East-Cooksville

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, the former mayor of Mississauga, took her time in choosing which of the six Mississauga ridings to run in, and she landed on this one. This riding is the only one in Mississauga without a Progressive Conservative incumbent and the Tories’ choice of candidate is an interesting one. Silvia Gualtieri is the mother-in-law of Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton and former leader of the PC Party. Mississauga ridings tend to flip between the PCs and Liberals, often voting for the winning party, but Crombie’s party is hoping her name recognition will help them recapture some seats there.

Windsor West

The Progressive Conservatives have been making an aggressive push for the votes of blue-collar workers and tradespeople in recent years and they see Windsor, with a long history of auto and parts manufacturing, as an extension of that. The party took the other two Windsor-area ridings from the NDP in the last election and are hoping to make it a trifecta this time. Leader Doug Ford launched his campaign here and the border city has a keen interest in U.S. relations, which Ford has made a hallmark of his campaign. Lisa Gretzky has held the seat for the NDP since 2014, but her margin of victory narrowed from 2018 to 2022. The candidate the Liberals nominated for this riding withdrew at the last minute.

Toronto-St. Paul’s

This riding was once thought of as a Liberal stronghold, but NDP took it in the great Liberal defeat of 2018. A star Liberal candidate came close in 2022, and the party has another prominent candidate this time around in former CP24 anchor Stephanie Smyth. If the Liberals are to pick up seats this election, this is one of the possibilities.

Kitchener Centre

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner has held his Guelph seat since 2018 and it was only in 2023 that the party picked up its second-ever seat, in Kitchener Centre. Former councillor Aislinn Clancy won the riding in a byelection in 2023, nabbing it from the NDP in a landslide. The Greens are looking to hold this seat and prove it was not a byelection fluke. Since the early 2000s this riding has been held by all three parties.

Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte

The Progressive Conservative candidate in this riding is Doug Downey, who has held the seat since 2018 and has served as attorney general in Doug Ford’s government. But despite the prominent representation, he was nearly unseated in the 2022 election. The Liberals ran former Barrie mayor Jeff Lehman last time and Downey beat him by fewer than 300 votes. This time, the Liberal candidate is a doctor and former Ontario Medical Association president Rose Zacharias, and with the Liberals trying to make health care the ballot question, they hope their star candidate will put them over the edge in this riding.

York South-Weston

The decision by Michael Ford, Doug Ford’s nephew, to not run again has made this race more competitive. The younger Ford was elected to the riding in 2022, unseating New Democrat Faisal Hassan, who is running again this time. In 2022, Hassan lost to Ford by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Sault Ste. Marie

The Progressive Conservatives have held this riding since a 2017 byelection, but the representative who held the seat since then, Ross Romano, is not running again. The NDP see an opening in this riding, in part due to local anger over health-care issues. About 10,000 patients were derostered by a group health centre in the city last year and a local poll, albeit with a very small sample size, suggested PC support may be slipping. However, with Algoma Steel the major employer in the riding, voters may favour Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford’s anti-tariff focus.

Hamilton Centre

The riding should be the NDP’s for the taking, but there is a wild card: Sarah Jama. Former NDP leader Andrea Horwath held the riding for many years, with massive margins in elections, but she resigned in 2022. Jama won the seat handily in a 2023 byelection, but was kicked out of the NDP caucus less than a year later and has sat as an independent since then. Jama’s ouster came after a series of events that began with a statement on the Israel-Hamas war that failed to mention the attack on Israeli civilians, though the decision was ultimately made after a series of moves from Jama that either publicly defied the party leader or caught her unaware. Jama is running as an independent in this election and has a dedicated and vocal group of supporters, giving her the potential to eat into NDP support.

Eglinton-Lawrence

Progressive Conservative Robin Martin won this riding in the past two elections by a relative hair, but she is not running again in this election. Liberal candidate Vince Gasparro is seen by the party as a promising candidate to win the riding the party held from 1999 to 2018. For the PCs it represents the party’s ability to deepen support from rural areas to suburbs and, with places like Eglinton-Lawrence, into the large urban centres where they were largely shut out for many years. The candidate the NDP nominated for the riding withdrew at the last minute, saying Eglinton-Lawrence is a “clear two-party contest” and she wants to prevent another Progressive Conservative win.

Haldimand-Norfolk

Bobbi Ann Brady took many political observers by surprise when she won this riding in 2022 as an independent – a feat rarely accomplished in Ontario elections. Her win ended the Progressive Conservative hold on the riding since 1995. Brady actually worked for the PC representative, Toby Barrett, for 23 years. He backed her bid as an independent against the Tory challenger, upset by the party’s move to appoint a candidate – whom he described as a “rival” – rather than hold an open nomination. The PC candidate this time is local mayor Amy Martin, but can Brady strike gold again?

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 25, 2025.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press