Ted Crysler marked election night with a low-key gathering at his home with his sister and two other party supporters, all watching the votes be counted to give him a second place finish in Simcoe-Grey riding behind incumbent Progressive Conservative MPP Brian Saunderson.
Crysler, who ran for the Liberals in Simcoe-Grey in 2022, won 18,549 votes in the riding in the Feb. 27, 2025 election, or about 32.5 per cent of the vote, behind Saunderson's 30,572 votes (53.5 per cent).
Both Saunderson and Crysler saw an increase in votes this election over the June 2, 2022 election. Saunderson received about 3,500 more votes this time and Crysler increased his vote count by 6,869.
"I'm actually very pleased with the result," said Crysler. "That's a good increase over last time, it went up 10 per cent, and we convinced a lot more people to vote Liberal."
Rounding out the results in Simcoe-Grey was Benten Tinkler for the NDP with 3,264 votes (5.72 per cent) and Allan Kuhn with 3,154 votes (5.52 per cent). David Ghobrial got 1,554 votes for New Blue, or about 2.72 per cent.
Crysler said it was a "challenging election," not only because of the winter storms, but because it was a "snap" decision with little time for the party to prepare.
"Door knocking was a particular challenge, but we met a lot of very supportive people ... who were tired of Ford and the Conservatives and wanted something to change," said Crysler.
And yet, he didn't see much change tonight as Doug Ford and his PCs won a third majority government with about the same number of seats they had before the election was called.
"I hoped for a different result provincially," said Crysler. "I think it's the wrong direction for the province and I think people are going to pay dearly over the next whatever the term of this government ends up being."
He was glad, however, to see the Liberal Party take more seats tonight than in the 2022 election.
The Liberals are third in seats, second in vote count with a few more polls to come in. But they did regain official party status by winning more than 12 seats (14 as of 11 p.m. on election night).
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has lost her Mississauga East—Cooksville seat to Progressive Conservative challenger Silvia Gualtieri.
Despite this setback, Crombie told the crowd gathered at the Mississauga Convention Centre that she will not be resigning, and plans to continue leading the party, which regained official party status Thursday night.
“People counted us out. They said the Ontario Liberal Party was dead. Tonight we proved them wrong,” said Crombie during her speech to supporters which did not acknowledge her loss in Mississauga East—Cooksville.
Since the 2018 election, only the PCs and NDP have had official party status at the legislature.
Having official party status will make a big difference for the Liberals’ day-to-day work at the legislature. They will get more questions during question period, equal time with the PCs and NDP to participate in debates and regain a spot on the legislature’s Board of Internal Economy.
But perhaps most importantly of all, the Liberals will once again receive funding from the legislature to help pay for research, staff salaries and other expenses. The Liberals have had to make do without this money since 2018.
Crysler said he will continue to be an advocate in the community, a promise he made following last year's election.
"I'm not changing who I am," he said. "And look, it's paid off right? To go from 11,000 to 18,000 votes, that's a significant increase. We're reaching a lot more people."
The voter turnout rates, so far, are about on par with the last election, which was an historic low.
"It could have been much worse," said Crysler, noting he expected an even lower turnout because of the winter and a lot of people being out of the province.
"It would be nice to have a higher turnout," he said. "More like 60 per cent, because then you might get change."
With files from Alan S. Hale and Katherine DeClerq, The Trillium