Rob Lantz wins leadership race, will be next P.E.I. premier

CHARLOTTETOWN — Rob Lantz will become the next premier of Prince Edward Island after winning the Progressive Conservative party leadership at its convention Saturday.

Lantz ran against Mark Ledwell for the top role and won by just over 350 votes, eking out 53 per cent with 2,895 votes. Ledwell, considered an underdog for much of the campaign, managed 2,542 votes, or 46 per cent.

“I was an outsider. I was running against City Hall,” Ledwell said. Now that the race is over, however, Ledwell says Lantz has his full support. “Whoever wins, we get behind them and we try and do the job for islanders. So that’s my commitment to (Lantz), my commitment to the party, my committed to people.”

Ledwell said he went into the race knowing anything can happen and while he didn’t take home the win, he’s happy he got a strong percentage of the vote. To him, it reinforces the notion that the PCs are ready for change.

“The party needs to engage in renewal and think about changing some things and that’s really what my campaign was all about,” Ledwell said.

“We knew it would be a close race,” Lantz said. “Leadership races by their nature are oppositional, but they’re not divisional.”

While he won’t throw out the possibility of an election, Lantz said sending Islanders back to the polls isn’t likely.

“I don’t think Islanders want to go to the polls,” Lantz said. “We’re not even three years into our mandate. We’ve got a 20-member strong caucus that islanders elected. Some of them just elected a few short months ago, in fact. So I think we have a mandate to continue governing, and so it’s not necessary, but it is an option.”

When it comes to negotiating with Ottawa, Lantz said the energy file is on the top of his list.

“We have some energy capacity issues that everyone’s well aware of. It’s well known that we advanced a nation-building project to get the cables replaced, to get undersea cables replaced.”

In the debates, Lantz talked about reworking the profit structure of Maritime Electric, the province’s power utility, moving toward a performance-based structure.

“We need to modernize our regulatory infrastructure here so that we can modernize our energy infrastructure,” Lantz said.

There were 5,437 votes cast out of 6,132 eligible voters, or 87 per cent, a record high number for the party.

Anne Christopher cast her vote for Lantz on Saturday, calling him the “best man for the job.”

“We have our Maritime Electric fiasco that has to be fixed, and everybody’s concerned about their electrical bill, and I also think Rob Lantz can figure that out with his partners in his MLAs. They all work well together and I think they do a very fine job.”

Mitchel Smelgrove cast his vote for Ledwell, saying that his experience as a lawyer and in the business world made up for his lack of political experience. “I think Mark (was) definitely the best option to bridge the gap between provincial and federal parties. To me that’s the huge thing right now in a lot provinces.”

Lantz had been named the party’s interim leader and interim premier in February 2025, following the resignation of Dennis King after nearly six years in power.

Lantz stepped down in December to run for permanent party leader and was replaced by Bloyce Thompson, who was sworn into office that month.

Ledwell, who is a lawyer and business leader, has been a longtime party member and announced his intention to run for the leadership in May.

Lantz is expected to be sworn in as premier quickly, with the paperwork likely ready by early this week.

In the meantime, he says he will take Saturday to celebrate with his family, and watch the Super Bowl this weekend before getting down to work Monday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 7, 2026.

Emily Baron Cadloff, The Canadian Press