Majority

Liberal candidate Neil Ellis arrives at the Empire Theatre on Monday night cheered by happy campaign workers and supporters.

Ellis paints the Bay red

Local Liberals had a pleasant surprise Monday night when, within minutes of the final polls closing, they could already be projected as the winners. Within an hour, a majority was in sight. Despite mounting indication in the polls, the party had remained cautiously optimistic.

Not so for Neil Ellis, who was confident in his win. More than half of voters in the new Bay of Quinte riding voted for the former Belleville mayor in a race that had once seemed too close to call.

The buzz at the Empire Theatre in Belleville built slowly. As the first polling station announcements rolled in just before 10 p.m., the small group of volunteers lounging in the theatre would cheer, then quiet down. By 11, an excitement had begun to creep into the building, as confidence grew in a liberal majority.

More than that, there was confidence that Ellis would be the first MP for the Bay of Quinte.

Ellis supporters milled about in the lobby, congratulating each other on the work they had done. As Ellis himself arrived that the theatre, a crowd of supporters and local media gathered to meet him. His supporters cheered as his wife, Sue, and their kids congratulated him.

But it was not a large crowd. And despite the decisive victory—Ellis won 50.6 per cent of the vote—it could very well have been part of a movement to vote strategically. Because there was no incumbent, the new Bay of Quinte riding had been identified as one that could tip the conservative lead, if voters chose to stray from their party of choice and vote en masse for the non-conservative candidate most likely to take the seat.

The celebration continued until midnight, when Ellis spoke to his supporters. He was introduced by former Prince Edward-Hastings Liberal MP Lyle Vanclief and surrounded by his family. He thanked his supporters, and then talked about the strength of the Liberal support in the new riding.

Despite much of rural Ontario remaining blue, Ellis said he was not surprised by a Liberal vote in the Bay of Quinte, pointing out this is an urban/rural riding.

“To come out with over 50 per cent when everybody said this is a conservative riding. I had CPAC in for an interview, and they shoved a mic in my face and said, this a conservative riding, how are you going to win this? And I said, Excuse me, Lyle Vanclief, Hugh O’Neill, Lou Rinaldi, to name a few,” Ellis said to the crowd. “And that started the interview off not on a good foot for me—but the riding’s red now, and it’s come with a strong majority.”

When all 241 polling stations were counted, Ellis had won by nearly 10,000 votes. Conservative representative Jodie Jenkins received 34.3 per cent of the votes, and the NDP’s Terry Cassidy came away with 12.2 per cent.