Hamilton election 2022 vote spread: Horwath dominated downtown

Being a career politician apparently matters, since Mayor-elect Andrea Horwath won the top elected political job in Hamilton on Monday by marshaling support in the areas she has represented for a quarter-century.

The vote spread, based on City of Hamilton poll-by-poll results from the municipal election, show that Horwath was the voting public’s choice at almost all polls in the downtown, lower city and the west end. That area is covered by wards 1 through 5. Ultimately, Horwath had the most mayoral votes at 59 of the 68 polling places there, while runner-up Keanin Loomis was the most popular pick at only seven.

Horwath was a Hamilton member of provincial parliament for 18 years, including the last 13 as the Ontario New Democratic Party leader before resigning in June and launching a mayoral run in July. Loomis, a former Hamilton Chamber of Commerce president and CEO, was in his first political campaign.

Loomis received the most votes at 39-of-40 polls across wards 10 (Lower Stoney Creek), 11 (Glanbrook) and 12 (Ancaster), which are some of the fastest-growing areas of Hamioton. Horwath was able to outpoll her electoral rival in some places in the suburbs. She took 7-of-12 polls in Ward 7, where former NDP caucus mate Monique Taylor is the local MPP.

As political analyst Chris Erl pointed out, the vote spread was rather stark. Horwath adopted Los Angeles Lakers-style purple and gold as her campaign colours, while Loomis used a bright lime green.

https://twitter.com/ChrisErl/status/1586054140975001600

The mayoralty is decided by the general vote, of course. Horwath had a 1,663-vote and 1.17-percentage-point margin over Loomis. Horwath had a 41.68% vote share, with Loomis coming close at 40.51% and third-place finisher Bob Bratina garnering 12.27%.

Here is who was first in the polls by ward.

The polls that Bratina, a former mayor and member of Parliament, carried included one in Ward 9 for residents of the Heritage Green and Ridgeview long-term care homes in Stoney Creek. He earned 20-of-53 votes there. He also received 4-of-7 votes case in the Ward 2 accessible pool, and he and Horwath tied 2-2 in the Ward 3 accessible poll.

Some other oddities pulled out from parsing the poll-by-poll numbers.

• Re-elected Ward 1 Coun. Maureen Wilson got more votes in the advance poll (1,423) than runner-up Ian MacPherson (1,386) did entirely.
• Ward 6. Coun. Tom Jackson, re-elected to an 11th term, also had more votes than any of his competitors by just from the advance poll alone.
• More than one-quarter of Ward 10 Coun.-elect Jeff Beattie’s winning margin came from the poll held at Winona Elementary School. Beattie co-operates a generational businsess, Winona Gardens greenhouses, nearby. At that poll, he got 212 more votes than runner-up Louie Milojevic, whom he topped by 790 overall.
• Coun. elect Mark Tadeson edged Nick Lauwers by 83 votes in the open Ward 11 race. Both received 654 votes at the advance poll. Tadeson found his winning margins in Binbrook. He had a 221-117 count against Lauwers from the ballots cast at the United Church, and a 229-108 count from ballots cast at the library.
• Horwath and Loomis had a dead heat at one polling place. They each received 366 mayoral votes at Yorkview Elementary School in Ward 13. Voters there had nine mayoral candidates to choose from and only two for council. Coun.-elect Alex Wilson carried that poll 536-278 over Arlene VanderBeek.

Full results are available at hamilton.ca.