TORONTO — Olivia Chow has secured a second term as mayor of Toronto, decisively defeating challenger Brad Bradford in a municipal election characterized by historic voter engagement and a high-stakes battle for the city’s ideological future.
As the final ballots were tallied late Monday night, it became clear that the “neck and neck” race warned of by Chow in the final days of the campaign had shifted into a definitive mandate for the incumbent. With 99.2 per cent of polls reporting, unofficial results showed that approximately 976,550 votes were cast—a massive surge in participation compared to the 563,124 ballots cast in the 2022 municipal election.
Chow captured 529,042 votes, or roughly 54.2 per cent of the total, comfortably outpacing the vote counts seen in recent mayoral history. In contrast, Bradford found success primarily in the suburbs of Etobicoke, midtown Toronto, and North York, leading in six of the city’s 25 wards.
Political pollster Nick Nanos described the result as a “crushing victory” for the Chow campaign, crediting their sophisticated ground game. “They delivered on the ground,” Nanos told CP24. “They knew the areas of the city that they were strong in—downtown and Scarborough—and they won big in those areas.”
Chow’s strategy to focus heavily on the Scarborough suburbs proved highly effective. She swept all five of the region’s wards, securing between 51 and 56.7 per cent of the vote in each. This penetration into areas historically more resistant to progressive platforms proved to be a turning point, effectively neutralizing the suburban gains made by the Bradford camp.
In downtown Toronto, Chow’s dominance was absolute. She recorded staggering margins in wards such as Toronto-Danforth, where she captured 71.1 per cent of the vote, and Toronto Centre, where she reached 72.4 per cent. Even in Bradford’s own home turf of Beaches-East York, the incumbent mayor more than doubled his vote count, underscoring the reach of her campaign’s momentum.
Despite the lopsided total vote count, the race remained competitive in several battleground areas. Chow secured narrow victories in York South-Weston and Toronto St. Paul’s, and managed a razor-thin win in Don Valley North, where she edged out Bradford by just 0.7 per cent. Conversely, Bradford demonstrated significant regional strength, capturing 59 per cent of the vote in Etobicoke Centre and winning decisive victories in York Centre and Eglinton-Lawrence.
With this victory, Chow cements her place at the helm of Canada’s largest city for another term, carrying a clear mandate from a record-setting number of Torontonians who turned out to shape the city’s direction. For the Bradford campaign, the result serves as a stark reminder of the organizational hurdles required to unseat a well-entrenched, city-wide movement.
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