PC candidate Zee Hamid has won the provincial byelection in Milton Thursday with about 47 per cent of the votes.
CBC made the projection that Hamid would win at close to 9:30 p.m, just a half hour after polls closed.
At the PC results gathering at a Milton Shoeless Joe’s, Hamid told CBC Toronto that he is “very excited, but also humbled.”
“I’m excited to be part of the team that’s getting things done,” he said.
Premier Doug Ford attended the gathering with Hamid. He commented on both Hamid’s win, and the PC candidate in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex’s win.
“We’re very grateful for the people … we have two great candidates,” said Ford. “We take nothing for granted and we’re going to keep working hard for the people of Ontario.”
Ford said Hamid is part of the community and is well-recognized around town.
By close to 10:20 p.m., all polls were reporting. The Liberal candidate Galen Naidoo Harris was slightly behind Hamid, with 10,473 votes, making up about 38 per cent of the vote share.
Thought 98,785 voters are registered in Milton, about 28 per cent of those voters went out to the polls.
Hamid, a three-term Milton councillor, has a past connection to the Liberals. He unsuccessfully sought a Liberal nomination in 2015 and donated to the party as recently as 2022.
Speaking at the PC results gathering at a Milton Shoeless Joe’s, PC MPP Deepak Anand said that Hamid has experience and voters saw that.
“It’s great news … you can see the results. It’s exciting. The people of Ontario have won again. They want a government that wants to take care of prosperity,” he said.
The riding west of Mississauga has been vacant since February, when then-PC MPP Parm Gill left his post to join the federal Conservative Party of Canada.
The byelection in Milton is being watched as a potential litmus test for Premier Doug Ford and his government as strategists told CBC Toronto this week it could indicate what challenges are ahead for the next provincial election in 2026.
The race was expected to be close between the Liberal and Conservative candidates, strategists with each party told CBC Toronto.
Ontario Liberals respond to PC victories
In a statement released after the PC party was projected to win in the two Ontario ridings where voters went to the polls Thursday, the Ontario Liberals said they finished strong.
“Tonight shows that Ontario Liberals are firmly established as the only opposition to Doug Ford,” the statement said.
Provincial Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie said the Liberal candidates in both ridings are “proven fighters” and they will be an integral part of their team moving forward.
Through the campaign period, opposition candidates spoke out against a proposed quarry that Premier Doug Ford’s government had promised to cancel four years ago. That hasn’t happened yet, though Ford did say he will sit down with the community after an environmental assessment is complete.
Following the announcement of Hamid’s projected win, community advocacy group ACTION Milton said Hamid must stop the quarry from going ahead.
Preliminary figures from Elections Ontario show that 6,511 voters cast their ballot in advance, which makes up 6.6 per cent of registered voters in Milton. In comparison, 11,520 voters, making up 12.6 per cent of registered voters, voted before polling day during the 2022 general election.
One Milton resident Augustin Gahungu spoke to CBC Toronto as he headed into a poll to vote. He said transit accessibility is a major issue in the town, and not enough trains run to Milton outside of work hours.
“As long as the party in power can do that, I’m OK with that. It’s not ideology, it’s what you get from the party,” he said.