Trudeau’s Liberals humiliated as Tories win Grit stronghold in Toronto

Conservative Don Stewart won the Toronto-St. Paul byelection Monday night, in a race that legacy media so anticipated a Liberal win, some early reports falsely claimed they did. Recent polls for the federal byelection showed the riding’s long-time Liberal candidate Leslie Church, who is the former chief of staff for Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was expected to win by a slight margin. Elections officials counted ballots into the early morning, and found the Conservatives maintained a lead of more than 590 votes, per Blacklock’s Reporter. Voter turnout was 43.5%. A total of 15,555 votes went to Stewart, 42.1% and 14,965 to Church, 40.5%, with NDP candidate Amrit Parhar and Green Party candidate Christian Cullis landing in a distant third and fourth, per CTV.At around midnight, Stewart spoke to his supporters and campaign team, telling them to "not give it up” and "bring it home,” per the Canadian Press. At approximately the same time, Church said the Liberals felt "great about the result, but we’re not quite there yet."Ottawa media jumped the gun in reporting the Liberal win. “A win’s a win,” said Paul Wells, pundit and Trudeau author, per Blacklock’s Reporter, congratulating “the new Liberal MP for Toronto-St. Paul’s” on Substack. “The Trudeau team will show new spring in its step as it prepares to get, once more, off the ropes and back in the fray,” Wells wrote.“Trudeau is staying. Over to you, Liberal incumbents.”The iPolitics news agency, formerly owned by the Toronto Star, mistakenly declared Liberals the winners too.“Liberals Retain Toronto-St. Paul’s In Closely Fought Byelection,” read the now-deleted headline.Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman congratulated her party for the hard work in securing the Toronto seat, widely perceived as a Liberal stronghold before the Tory win. “Congratulations to the team… and to the unwavering leadership of Pierre Poilievre,” Lantsman wrote on social media. “Thank you most of all to the voters of Toronto - St. Paul’s.”Freeland on Monday told voters the election represents "a choice between two visions of Canada, two sets of values.""I'm really calling on the people of St. Paul's to go out there and vote for [Church] because the alternative is really cold, and cruel, and small. The alternative is cuts and austerity, not believing in ourselves as a country, not believing in our communities and in our neighbors," Freeland said, per CTV.Stewart will take his seat in the House of Commons once parliament resumes in September.