The Thunder Bay-Rainy River riding again voted red in yesterday’s federal election, with Liberal candidate Marcus Powlowski securing 14,336 votes–or 35.3 percent of the popular vote–to become the new MP here.
It was a tight race for the three major parties with runner-up Linda Rydholm of the Conservative Party receiving 11,984 votes (29.5 percent), while Yuk-Sem Won of the New Democrats had 11,708 votes (28.8 percent).
Amanda Moddejonge of the Green Party landed 1,783 votes (4.4 percent), while Andrew Hartnell of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) received 730 votes (1.8 percent).
Looking at the bigger picture, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will serve another four-year term with a strong Liberal minority following last night’s federal election.
While the Liberals won the highest number of seats nationally with 157, the Conservatives had more of the popular vote, with 34.4 percent compared to the 33.06 percent received by the Liberals, while only taking 121 seats.
Overall, the Bloc Quebecois gained some ground with the 32 seats they won, totalling 7.7 percent of the popular vote, the NDP only secured 24, but had 15.9 percent of the popular vote.
Powlowski told the Times that he felt many ridings re-elected Liberal candidates in last night’s election but the Bloc Quebecois resurgence played a role in reducing the number of seats they won.
The Green Party, meanwhile, took three seats and received 6.5 percent of the popular vote and the PPC got 1.64 percent of the vote, but zero seats.
Voter turnout was down compared to four years ago
While nearly 66 percent of registered voters went to the polls yesterday and in the weeks leading up to it, voter turnout in the 2015 federal election was 68.5 percent–the highest turnout seen since 1993.
