Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives will form another majority government at Queen’s Park after securing 43 percent of the popular vote in the Feb. 27 election.
While Ford was widely expected to win another majority, there were still some notable takeaways from the election.
1. First in 50 Years
The Progressive Conservatives’ success in winning a third consecutive majority government in this week’s snap election marks a milestone that has not been reached in more than 50 years of Ontario’s electoral history.The party has not achieved such a feat since the succession of mandates won by the PCs between the 1940s and the mid-1980s.
George A. Drew began a 42-year conservative dynasty with his win in 1943 that saw three additional PC leaders elected before voters put the Liberals back into power in 1985 under David Peterson.
The PCs did not form the government again until 1995 under Mike Harris, but lost out to the Liberals again in 2003. The Liberals remained in power until the 2018 election when Ford won his first majority government, winning 76 seats in the legislature. He won a stronger majority in 2022, with 83 seats. One of those seats was lost to the Liberals in a 2023 byelection in Kanata-Carleton when Merrilee Fullerton resigned. An additional three were lost when MPPs either resigned or were expelled from caucus to sit as independents.
When the legislature was dissolved last month, the PCs had 79 seats and the party picked up one extra seat during the Feb. 27 vote. The PCs will head back to Queen’s Park with 80 seats after winning 43 percent of the popular vote.
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, left, makes her way to the stage at her campaign headquarters to address her supporters during the Ontario provincial election in Mississauga, Ont., on Thursday, February 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
2. Liberal Victories and Losses
The Feb. 27 vote saw the Liberal Party regain official party status after experiencing lacklustre performances in the 2018 and 2022 elections.The once governing Liberals received nearly double the popular vote compared to the NDP, yet fell short of the seats it needed to form the Official Opposition at Queen’s Park.
The Bonnie Crombie-led Liberals took 29.9 percent of the vote but remained in third place behind the NDP, mirroring the results of the last two elections.
The NDP had a smaller share of the popular vote—18.6 percent—but pulled off victories in 27 ridings compared to the Liberals’ 14 to make Marit Stiles and her party the voice of opposition in the legislature.
One of the ridings the Liberals lost was Mississauga East-Cooksville, the riding in which party leader Crombie was running.
Crombie, who was formerly the mayor of Mississauga, lost to PC candidate Silvia Gualtieri, who is the mother-in-law of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown. Crombie lost by a margin of 1,227 votes, taking 43 percent of the votes in her riding compared to Gualtieri’s 46.5 percent.
Crombie has vowed to stay on as party leader despite the loss.
3. What Are the Flipped Seats?
The 2025 election saw most ridings retain their previous representative, but there are a few instances where seats were flipped in favour of another party.The Liberals and the PCs both gained seats at the expense of the NDP. The Liberals also took three from the PCs while the NDP stole one.
The Liberal Party successfully won seats from the PCs in Ajax and Etobicoke-Lakeshore, as well as in Nepean, a riding that had been under Conservative control for 26 years. The Liberals achieved victory in Toronto-St. Paul’s, a seat previously held by the NDP, and successfully captured the Don Valley North riding from former PC-turned-Independent MPP Vincent Ke. He was ousted from the PC caucus following allegations of Chinese interference, a claim he denies.
The NDP managed to keep Windsor West despite heavy campaigning by Ford in the area. Windsor was just one of the union towns focused on by the PC leader. He promised cities like Windsor and Hamilton he would protect jobs in the face of potentially damaging U.S. tariffs and spoke directly to blue-collar workers and tradespeople during his campaign stops.
That message may have contributed to the PCs victory in Hamilton Mountain over the NDP. The PCs also flipped Algoma-Manitoulin, a riding which has voted NDP since the 2011 election.
4. Voter Turnout
Voter engagement in the 2025 election was among the lowest on record, but it did see a marginal increase when compared to the previous election.Fewer than half of Ontario’s more than 11 million eligible voters exercised their right to cast a ballot on Feb. 27. A full 55 percent of voters chose not to head to the polls, resulting in a 45 percent voter turnout, according to Elections Canada statsistics.
Even with fewer than half of Ontarians opting to vote, the 2025 turnout exceeded that of the 2022 election when just 43.5 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. It was the lowest voter turnout in Ontario’s history.
Voter turnout in the last two elections has significantly declined compared to previous elections, where participation rates exceeded 55 percent, Election Canada results show. Ford’s first election in 2018 saw 57 percent of voters participate.
The 14 elections between 1955 and 2003 averaged a much higher turnout, ranging from a low of 57 percent in 2003 to 74 percent in 1971 for an average of 63 percent. The period from 2007 to 2011 saw numbers drop, averaging 50 percent across the three elections conducted during those years.
This week’s vote saw the PCs win 43 percent of the popular vote, followed by the Liberals at 29.9 percent, the NDP at 18.6 percent, and the Green Party at 4.8 percent. Independent candidates garnered 1 percent of the vote—and one seat win—compared to the New Blue Party which had 1.6 percent of the vote but did not win in any of the ridings. No other parties listed on the ballot received more than 1 percent of the total popular vote.
Bobbi-Ann Brady Courtesy Bobbi-Ann Brady's campaign
5. Only One Independent Victorious
Independent candidate Bobbi Brady made history in the 2022 election when she became the first Independent MPP in Ontario who hadn’t previously been elected as part of a party.Fast-forward three years to the current election and Brady is once again victorious in her riding of Haldimand-Norfolk, winning by a huge margin of 20,720 votes over PC candidate Amy Martin.
Brady won 63.7 percent of the popular vote compared to Martin who had 24.5 percent. None of the other candidates came close to matching either of their numbers.
Brady was the campaign manager and executive assistant to Haldimand-Norfolk PC MPP Toby Barrett prior to launching her own political career.
Brady originally planned to run for the PC nomination after Barrett announced his retirement, but the party’s central office directly appointed Haldimand County mayor Ken Hewitt as its new candidate instead. Brady decided to run against Hewitt as an independent, with Barrett’s endorsement.
She beat Hewitt in 2022’s election by 2,070 votes.
