Where things stand ahead of byelection night
Livestream starting at 8:30 PM ET
It’s Byelection Night in Canada and three seats are up for grabs — as well as a majority in the House of Commons.
That being the case, I figured I should update the Vote and Seat Projection Model a day early. Not only will this give us a chance to take a look at what the model says we should expect in the two Toronto ridings of Scarborough Southwest and University—Rosedale and the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, it’ll also give us a baseline against which to judge the results.
Before diving into the numbers, let me take this opportunity to invite you to tune in to our coverage of the byelection results, starting as soon as the polls close at 8:30 PM ET tonight on YouTube!
We’re expecting a bit of a late night. We should be able to get through the two Toronto ridings fairly quickly before turning our attentions to Terrebonne, where a special write-in ballot will delay the count in what is expected to be a closely-contested seat. We might have to stick around until every vote is counted!
By then, though, we should already know if the Liberals get their majority government if the two Toronto seats are called relatively early. But, if the Liberals can take it, Terrebonne will provide them more cushion. Conversely, if the Bloc can win it back, then they will deal Mark Carney his first real setback since the April 2025 election.
Before getting to the byelections, here’s where the latest projection puts things nationally:
The Liberals have slipped 0.4 points in the vote projection and two seats in the seat projection since last week, but otherwise are holding steady with 45.9% of the vote and 223 seats. The Conservatives are up a small 0.3 points to 34.1%, but are unchanged at 84 seats. The Bloc is up one seat to 23, while the NDP is also up one seat to 11 and sits at 8.8% of the vote. That share of the vote is virtually unchanged from last week — and this is after the inclusion of a few polls conducted after Avi Lewis become NDP leader. In short, we’re seeing no Lewis bump just yet.
For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:
That’s the big picture. What about the three ridings holding byelections today? Below are the results from the last general election, when the Liberals’ Bill Blair won in Scarborough Southwest and Chrystia Freeland prevailed in University—Rosedale. In Terrebonne, Tatiana Auguste defeated the Bloc’s Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné by a single vote, a result that was overturned by the Supreme Court due to an error made by Elections Canada that could’ve impacted the result.
How do these three seats look today, and what benchmarks can we set to help us judge the results?