WINDSOR-TECUMSEH COUNT

Mail-in ballots will have final say

Windsor West incumbent Brian Masse talked eagerly of “getting back to work” on Tuesday, while expressing relief and gratitude after a resounding win over two-time Liberal challenger Sandra Pupatello.

“That's something I'm very cognizant of during the campaign, is not disappointing people who have been supporting me for so long,” said Masse, the NDP'S longest-serving MP now entering his eighth term in Parliament. First elected in 2002, Monday's victory virtually assures he'll soon enter his third decade of federal politics.

“Oh geez, I never thought of it that way,” Masse, 53, told reporters Tuesday morning, after an election night that went well into the early hours of the next day. He'd had two hours sleep before rising to help with the collection and storage of lawn signs so they'll be ready for the next election.

High on his Parliament to-do list are: ensuring the rescue of Ojibway Shores and the creation of a new urban national park, passing legislation to guard against a future closure of Windsor International Airport's air traffic control tower, making good on an NDP campaign promise to reduce Canadian cellphone charges, and address the affordable housing crisis.

Returning to Ottawa enables him to continue with his previous efforts as well as set sights on new goals, he said.

“I see it as a new adventure every single time and I have to earn the right to represent this place every single day.”

The first several polls that rolled in on election night had Masse and Pupatello neck and neck with around 40 per cent of the votes. But then they started moving apart. By midnight it was clear he had comfortably won, regardless of the 2,500 mail-in ballots that still needed to be counted Wednesday.

By Tuesday, with all but the mail-in ballots counted, Mass had 20,409 votes or 44.1 per cent of the total, compared with Pupatello's 12,758 votes or 27.6 per cent. While Masse had almost the same number of votes as the 20,800 he garnered in 2019, Pupatello, a former Liberal provincial cabinet minister who served Windsor West from 1995 to 2011, received just 12,758 votes compared to the 18,878 she received in 2019.

“You know, it's a shame, the turnout was really low,” Pupatello said Tuesday, referring to the 50.2 per cent turnout. That was about five percentage points below Windsor West turnouts the previous two elections and well below the 58.4 per cent turnout in neighbouring Windsor-tecumseh.

“The NDP got the numbers they always get and the Liberals stayed home,” Pupatello said.

She said she wasn't thinking about whether this is the end of her political career, having lost the last two federal elections in her riding.

“For now I'm going back to work (a consulting business), that's my immediate plan.”

She said the voters clearly didn't want to vote Liberal.

“People don't want to see change, then they get what they got and I just have to accept that,” she said.

Coming third was Conservative Anthony Orlando with 19.4 per cent, similar to the 19.1 per cent earned by Conservative Henry Lau in 2019. People's Party of Canada candidate Matthew Giancola took 8.6 per cent of the vote Monday, much more than the 1.8 per cent that PPC candidate Darryl Burrel received in 2019.

Masse has historically crushed his Windsor West opponents. His closest margin was about seven percentage points when he first ran in 2002, but in the seven campaigns since he has won by margins as large as 30 points.

The gap between Masse and Pupatello was “a good margin, there's no doubt about it,” Masse said Tuesday. But even though the incoming poll results Monday night showed him in extremely good shape, he wouldn't claim victory until around 12:30 a.m. when results from the advance polls arrived. He and his team knew the advance polls were key because they had 12,000 votes — roughly a quarter of all votes cast.

“Everything was taking shape the way it was supposed to but the big anomaly was the 12,000 that were coming in that we had to wait for,” Masse said. “We had to have respect for voters and didn't want to jump to any conclusions.”

In the end, Masse had strong support in the advance polls, similar to his strong overall support.

Masse said he lost perhaps six polls out of the 236 polls in Windsor West.