EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Doug Ford’s bet paid off.
The Progressive Conservatives have won Ontario’s 2025 election and the right to govern the province for another four years.
Ontario's major broadcasters called the majority victory just 10 minutes after the polls closed at 9 p.m. in Thursday’s general election. It comes as a result of the campaign Ford initiated on Jan. 29, a year-and-a-half before the next provincial vote was scheduled.
“This election, we asked the people for a mandate — a strong mandate to outlive and outlast the Trump administration … Well friends, the people have spoken,” Ford told PC supporters at the party’s election night celebration in Toronto.
Bonnie Crombie, who led the Ontario Liberal Party into a general election for the first time, was defeated in her riding of Mississauga East—Cooksville. The Liberals, however, improved their seat count, electing enough MPPs to surpass the 12-seat threshold needed for official party status for the first time in Ontario since 2018.
In a speech to party faithful in Mississauga, Bonnie Crombie said she planned to stay on as leader. Crombie said she had a message to all of the people who want to see Ford held to account: “You can count on me, okay.”
“So I can say this tonight: Doug, we’ll be watching,” Crombie added.
The NDP also had a leader fighting a general election for the first time in Marit Stiles. The party retained the status of official Opposition in the legislature.
With over 97 per cent of polls reporting, the PCs had won about 43 per cent of the popular vote.
About 30 per cent of all votes in the province were cast for Liberal candidates, while 19 per cent were for New Democrats. The NDP’s vote was far more efficient, however, concentrated in ridings the party won, while Liberals placed second in more ridings around the province.
As of 11:45 p.m., the PCs were on track to win 79 seats. The NDP was on track to win 25, while the Liberals were on track to win 14, with three ridings not yet declared.
The Green Party of Ontario, led by Mike Schreiner, retained the two seats it held before the election — his in Guelph and Aislinn Clancy’s in Kitchener Centre.
Independent Bobbi Ann Brady was re-elected in Haldimand—Norfolk.
Despite already controlling a strong majority of the 124 seats in the provincial legislature, Ford said that threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump meant his PCs needed a new “strong, four-year mandate” to govern Ontario through potentially uncertain times.
The PC leader got his wish — without making any significant gains compared to the party’s parliamentary position pre-election of 79 seats.
The PCs framed their campaign around a single message targeted at many Ontarians' chief concern. They argued that Ford is the best leader to “Protect Ontario” against Trump’s threats.
However, according to numerous PC and PC-linked sources, a combination of other factors drove Ford’s early election call. Having a vote held before any potentially damaging revelations came from the RCMP’s Greenbelt investigation or there was a potentially disruptive change in government at the federal level were both influencing factors, along with the PCs’ strong public polling position, sources said.
A familiar cast of NDP MPPs will return to Queen’s Park to make up the official Opposition once again. Stiles, the party’s leader, said throughout the campaign that she was focused on flipping blue seats orange. The NDP failed to accomplish that in a single riding.
“We, the NDP, will stand up for the people,” Stiles said in a speech on Thursday evening.
A shift by the NDP to a defensive-focused strategy in the final days of the campaign mitigated what some were predicting would be a disastrous election for the party. Stiles turned her attention to areas with New Democrat incumbents, making visits to ridings in Niagara, Hamilton, Toronto, London and Waterloo.
The PCs were gunning to pick up several seats along the Niagara-Hamilton corridor and in northern Ontario, areas where they largely compete with the NDP, but made little headway. Ford’s party was on track to only take two seats from Stiles.
Crombie’s Liberals were set to grow their seat count from nine to 14 or more, mostly through winning previously PC-held ridings.
Schreiner’s Greens had high hopes to pick up a third seat, Parry Sound—Muskoka, where perennial candidate Matt Richter finished a close second to Progressive Conservative Graydon Smith.
“Together, we held Doug Ford’s feet to the fire and delivered for our communities,” said Schreiner at his election party in Guelph.
The result for Ford’s party slightly undershot how it had polled throughout the campaign. Public opinion surveys showed little change throughout the four-week writ period. Brief flashbacks to the Greenbelt scandal in the news cycle, a couple of Ford slip-ups, and other minor self-inflicted scratches by the PCs seemed to make little of a difference on election day.
The result of Ontario’s 2025 election closely mirrored 2022’s.
