At the end of the night, 124 candidates earned seats at the Ontario legislature, but as the election results rolled in, some of them were likely breathing much easier than others.
That’s because some of these contests — including the one that ultimately saw Kathleen Wynne re-elected — were decided by just a handful of votes.
On the other hand, a few lucky candidates were able to cruise to victory with roughly two-thirds of voter support.
Here’s a look at some of the tightest races and most decisive victories of the night. All figures are according to unofficial results via Elections Ontario.
The biggest landslides
The most popular candidate in any Ontario riding — as measured by the proportion of votes received — was PC veteran John Yakabuski, the incumbent MPP for the eastern Ontario riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
He won with 69.2 per cent of the vote, 25,284 ballots ahead of the next candidate.
As expected, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath — an MPP since 2004 — claimed victory in Hamilton Centre, this time with 65.25 per cent of the vote, a margin of 18,136 over the runner-up in the race, Tory Dionne Duncan.
Another senior New Democrat, Toronto Danforth incumbent Peter Tabuns, won with 64.3 per cent of the vote. Elsewhere in Toronto, former school trustee Marit Stiles received a solid 60 per cent of the vote to claim victory over the Liberals in Davenport, a west end riding previously held by Cristina Martins, who came in second.
A handful of others were also quite popular on election night. NDP candidates France Gelinas (Nickelbelt) and John Vanthoff (Timiskaming—Cochrane) were able to earn more than 60 per cent of votes cast, along with Progressive Conservatives Jim McDonnell (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry), Gila Martow in Thornhill, Billy Pang of Markham—Unionville and Steve Clark (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes).
The tightest races
Though the numbers could change as official results are made available, based on current totals from Elections Ontario, three ridings were decided by fewer than a hundred votes.
Liberal cabinet minister Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough—Guildwood) and Thunder Bay—Atikokan NDP candidate Judith Monteith-Farrell won their seats by 81 votes each. Hunter won with 33.35 per cent of votes cast, just under a quarter of a percentage point higher than PC candidate Roshan Nallaratnam.
In Brampton Centre, Sara Singh of the NDP defeated PC candidate Harjit Jaswal by just 89 votes, or about a third of a percentage point of the overall vote.
Several other ridings in the area were hotly contested: Brampton North and Brampton West were won by just under 500 votes each.
In Ottawa West—Nepean, Jeremy Roberts of the PC party won a tight-three way race by 176 votes, unseating incumbent Liberal Bob Chiarelli, who had a third-place finish.
Another nail-biter was Premier Kathleen Wynne‘s battle for re-election in the riding of Don Valley West. She avoided defeat to PC challenger Jon Kieran by 181 votes, but ended up stepping down as Liberal leader.