Olivia Chow campaigned for re-election from the political centre. But brace yourselves Toronto. Canada’s largest city now has a more left-wing council than before.
Whatever the mayor was planning for her second term, Chow will certainly face pressure from council to be more left-wing than she was the first time around.
Mayor Chow got re-elected.
It’s true. 🤣 https://t.co/XA1g9Kfky4
— Canada Roast (@CanadaRoast) October 28, 2026
h/t Clink9
Toronto voters turned out in significantly higher numbers for the 2026 municipal election, delivering the city’s strongest voter participation rate since 2014 and reversing a decline that peaked with a historic low just four years ago.
According to unofficial election results, 982,660 ballots were counted across all 1,431 polling locations, resulting in a voter turnout of 45.8 per cent.
Since Toronto’s amalgamation as the megacity in 1997, no mayor seeking re-election has lost and, on Monday, Olivia Chow continued that trend by winning a second term. Chow’s victory was impressive. She won the most votes of anyone ever to run for mayor, more than 530,000, but it wasn’t an easy victory.
Olivia Chow may have defeated Brad Bradford in Toronto’s mayoral race, but her unusually narrow margin of victory suggests that many Torontonians remain frustrated with her lacklustre performance.
Although pre-election polls conducted over the past week suggested a tight race, Chow beat Bradford by what would be considered, in most contexts, a large lead: 54 versus 41 per cent, or 13 points.
Olivia Chow is preparing to lead Toronto for another four years, after an emphatic victory over former councillor Brad Bradford Monday night.
Chow will oversee a progressive, new-look council with several of her key allies elected, putting her in a strong position to pursue her agenda.
The returning mayor started the year looking comfortably ahead, before it appeared Bradford could surge into the mayor’s chair.
In the end, she won a massive victory — netting roughly 530,000 votes, according to the unofficial results (official results will come once they’ve been certified by the city clerk).
(Link fixed)
BCF Calls it for Chairman Chow – Full results at link
CP24 – Voting underway across the GTA, polls close at 8 p.m. Live election day updates here
The Star – Toronto election live: voting is underway as polls open; Bradford and Chow kick off election day campaigns
Tor Sun – ELECTION LIVE: Toronto and GTA municipal vote results
As the adage states, it is better to be lucky than good. Toronto mayor Olivia Chow has certainly enjoyed her fair share of luck throughout her political career. She and her husband, former NDP leader Jack Layton, were the country’s most famous progressive power couple, and they rode that fame to higher office. In 2023, Mayor John Tory abruptly resigned due to a sex scandal in which he admitted to engaging in a relationship with a 31-year-old female office staffer. His resignation triggered a chaotic, fast-paced election with over 100 candidates. This was Chow’s chance to pursue her dream of becoming mayor of the country’s largest city. Chow won with only 37% of the vote against a divided group of weak conservative candidates. This time, Chow will need more luck, as councillor Brad Bradford presents a compelling, future-oriented platform that has shifted the race and put Chow’s campaign on the defensive as his poll numbers rise.
It seems like only yesterday that the Toronto mayoral election appeared to be a foregone conclusion. Olivia Chow, in spite of her left-wing ideology, fiscal irresponsibility and tax-and-spend mentality, had led in the polls from the start. She had outpaced and outlasted an assortment of potential challengers, including former mayor John Tory, and was on the cusp of victory.
Brad Bradford is scared of Toronto, and he thinks you should be too.
That is the unmistakable theme of the campaign from the outgoing city councillor as he challenges Mayor Olivia Chow. His campaign rhetoric has painted a consistent picture of a dirty and dangerous Toronto filled with disorder. And the implied lesson is clear. In these dark times, only one man – accompanied by the 1,000 police officers he’s pledged to hire – can save us. That is a standard challenger’s narrative.
Toronto is dirty and dangerous.
On a clear morning last week, Brad Bradford stood at the top of the hill of Riverdale Park, and talked about a comeback.
With the Toronto skyline glittering behind him, the mayoral candidate declared to assembled reporters that under his leadership, the city that many feel is foundering could reach its full potential.
“Every comeback always starts the same way, right? It’s long odds. It’s people that say it can’t be done,” he said. “I know that Toronto can work better.”
Anything is better than Chow but voting stupid is a matter of civic pride in Hogtown
The other 40% just moved here last week, LOL.
— Patti Jo (@TheSupeHero) October 23, 2026
H/T Patti Jo
Like a lot of young parents in Toronto — my nine-year-old daughter is a fourth grade student in the TDSB — I’ve spent a lot of time since the pandemic thinking about homelessness and public safety.
In the years during and immediately after lockdown, I spent more time in public parks and playgrounds than I had at any other point in my life. I watched my kid totter through splash pads and learn the monkey bars. I launched her through the solar system on the swings — past the moon and Mars, though the asteroid belt and home again.
At the final debate of the Toronto mayoral campaign on Thursday night, a familiar pattern emerged.
Chow, the incumbent mayor, would accuse Bradford of a misdeed, either in his promises in the campaign or his actions as a city councillor. Bradford would respond with some version of “that’s not true.” Sometimes he would offer a sigh or a shake of the head as, he said, he had to correct the record. Sometimes he said Chow was spreading misinformation on issues like his proposal to create a public water utility, which she said opens the door to privatization of the city’s water supply. Sometimes he said, a little theatrically, that she was better than this. “It’s below you and it’s below the office,” he would say, lamenting what he called the incumbent mayor’s scare tactics.
With just three days to go until Toronto votes, a new poll shows incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow has the lead over Brad Bradford by five percentage points, but the numbers indicate the race has tightened down the stretch.
The latest Canada Pulse Insights poll for CityNews found Chow has the support of 51 per cent of decided voters, and leaning voters. This is in comparison with 46 per cent for Bradford, while three per cent support another candidate.
However, Chow’s five-point lead marks a significant shift from September, when she held a 17-point lead over Bradford, who has gained 12 percentage points since then.
As rats infest Nathan Phillips Square, is Mayor Olivia Chow’s imploding campaign using narrative Brad Bradford’s “white” voters are leaving their “white toddlers” with Filipino caregivers a sign of desperation?
Request into Karishma @MayorOliviaChow @BradMBradford for comment on this use of race/class description in a video as part of @Toronto mayor campaign—as @jerryagar1010 asks if another candidate were to describe voters by skin colour, would there be scrutiny? @KarishmaPorwal3 — here is the full link on Instagram — https://t.co/p9nkkosHvD
— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) October 22, 2026
Never elect commie foreigners.
The Toronto mayoral race between incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow and Councillor Brad Bradford is now neck-and-neck. Whatever happens next, this is a huge upset to the assumption that Toronto is a left-wing city craving left-wing policies.
What this tells us, regardless of who wins on Monday night, is that Toronto residents shouldn’t be taken for granted by the NDP and that they do care about fiscal stability and public safety.
Toronto is in decline, the population is majority foreign born.
White flight has hollowed out the city.
It can’t be reversed.
