Today, the voters of Simcoe-Grey have elected a new member of parliament, but results have not been reported yet.
The incumbent Conservative MP, Kellie Leitch, did not run in the federal election, so no matter who is elected locally, they will be new to the seat.
Simcoe-Grey has been a conservative riding since 2004 when Helena Guergis won a close election in the riding taking 100 more votes than incumbent Liberal MP Paul Bonwick – 22,496 for Guergis and 22,396 for Bonwick.
Bonwick was first elected in 1997 and again in 2000. Bonwick won his first election in 1997 with 17,895 votes, and his second with 22,224 votes or 44.8 per cent of the votes cast in Simcoe-Grey.
Guergis won again in 2006 with 49 per cent (30,000 votes) of the Simcoe-Grey votes.
Guergis did run in 2011, but as an independent. She was defeated by Kellie Leitch who took 49.37 per cent (31,784 votes) of the vote. Leitch won again in 2015 with 46.56 per cent (30,612 votes) of the local vote.
In the last federal election (2015), the second-place finisher in Simcoe-Grey was Liberal candidate Mike MacEachern.
The Liberals won 80 seats in Ontario in 2015, with voter turnout at 68.5 per cent, the highest turnout since 1993.
Now that polls have closed, watch CollingwoodToday.ca/candaavotes for local results for today’s federal election.
