Ontario election races to watch in Waterloo region, Guelph and Wellington County

Ontario voters go to the polls on Thursday in the provincial election, and the outcomes of some races are being more closely watched than others.

Leaders of the four major parties have made stops in Waterloo region in the past week — including NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Green Leader Mike Schreiner on Wednesday. Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford held a rally in Kitchener last Friday and Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca made campaign stops on Monday. 

Below are the local races to watch Thursday night.

Your own riding

The most important riding to individual voters is your own because the winner will be the person who represents your views at Queen's Park.

They will be the person you go to when you have a provincial concern. During the pandemic, local MPPs were who business owners turned to for help obtaining provincial funding.

2 ridings with no incumbent

There are two ridings in this area without incumbents. That's important because incumbents are generally seen to have name recognition and it gives them a slight edge over the other candidates.

In Kitchener South-Hespeler, Progressive Conservative Amy Fee opted not to seek re-election. The riding is relatively new — it was created in 2018 — and it's one the PCs very much would like to hold on to, says Éric Grenier, a polls analyst, writer for The Writ website and who does the CBC Poll Tracker.

There are six people in the Kitchener South-Hespeler race, including PC Jess Dixon, a provincial and federal Crown attorney, Liberal Ismail Mohamed who is a community worker, school board trustee Joanne Weston for the NDP and former police officer David Weber, who has run for the Green party before.

In Perth-Wellington, long-time Progressive Conservative Randy Pettapiece also announced he would not seek re-election.

There are seven people vying for the seat, including Matthew Rae, a young Progressive Conservative candidate with experience working in political offices; Ashley Fox, a nurse running for the Liberals; Jo-Dee Burbach, a Stratford city councillor, is the NDP candidate and Laura Bisutti, a school board trustee, is running for the Greens.

Cambridge

Cambridge is an interesting riding because it has an incumbent — Belinda Karahalios — but she's running for a different party than she did in 2018.

Karahalios was removed from the PC caucus in 2021 for voting against her own government's motion. She and her husband, Jim, went on to form the New Blue Party. 

Anna Esselment, an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo, has said it's hard for new parties to break onto the political scene, particularly in their first election.

"A lot of new parties that come on the scene have a smattering of support across the province, but the way our first-past-the-post election system works in terms of actually winning a seat, it's rarely an efficient vote. Meaning, it's rare that you would have a lot of supporters for that brand new party in one riding that could then make sure that it wins first on the ballot and wins the seat," she said.

Esselment noted that there could be a lot of support for Karahalios in the riding, but it may end up splitting the vote, which could lead to a Liberal or NDP win.

The parties are definitely focused on Cambridge. In the final two weeks before the campaign, Cambridge saw the leaders of three of the major parties make a campaign stop: PC Leader Doug Ford on May 21, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca on May 30 and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath on Wednesday, the day before voting day.

There are five people in the running for the seat in Cambridge. They include Karahalios; PC candidate Brian Riddell, a local businessperson and instructor at Conestoga Collage; Liberal Sureka Shenoy who is know for her volunteer work; community worker Marjorie Knight who has run for the NDP before and teacher Carla Johnson for the Green party.

Kitchener-Conestoga

This race has been pegged as one to watch because it was a close race in 2018 — PC Mike Harris Jr. won with fewer than 700 votes over NDP candidate Kelly Dick.

This riding has also seen very close races in the federal election, too (see our stories about the 2021, 2019 and 2015 races).

Harris is the incumbent in this riding, which gives him name recognition, but he's also up against two school board trustees: Melanie Van Alphen for the Liberals and Karen Meissner for the NDP.

This riding also has New Blue Party Leader Jim Karahalios in the race and Ontario Party candidate Elizabeth Perrin Snyder. Given the close race in 2018, Grenier says it will be interesting to see whether the emergence of these two conservative-based parties pull votes away from Harris.

Grenier says of the ridings in Waterloo region where there's uncertainty — Cambridge, Kitchener South-Hespeler and Kitchener-Conestoga — the PCs may lose one, but they "can't afford to lose all three."

That, Grenier says, "would probably make for a bad night for Doug Ford. So I would keep an eye on those three seats in particular in Waterloo region."