Voters in southwestern Ontario are getting used to the sight of orange and blue battle buses swinging into their towns and cities, with party leaders visiting ridings they think they have a chance of flipping ahead of election day.
Ontario’s election campaign is playing out on several fronts, with canvassers knocking on doors all over the province and ads promoting social media users to consider certain candidates.
Where the leaders go — and the locations they choose to hold big policy events or photo ops — is another facet of the campaign, hinting at which areas the central campaign is optimistic or nervous about.
Over the opening two weeks of the campaign, Global News has tracked the locations of public events all four party leaders have held and which ridings they’re appearing in most.
Southwestern Ontario battleground
Progressive Conservative Party Leader Doug Ford launched his re-election campaign deep into territory the Ontario NDP won in 2022.
His first event of the campaign in Windsor West was a riding the NDP won in 2022, as were his next stops in London—Fanshawe and London North Centre.
A photo opportunity in St. Catharines took Ford into a riding the NDP’s Jennie Stevens won in 2022, while two separate trips to Niagara Falls also took the PC onto the NDP’s patch.
Southwestern Ontario ridings appear to be on the target list for the PCs, who are promoting trade union endorsements in blue-collar areas, promising construction jobs and funding skills development training.
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It’s also a part of the province the NDP could be worried about.
In Niagara Centre, the NDP’s Jeff Burch won with a two per cent margin in 2022 and, in Niagara Falls, Wayne Gates had a 12 per cent margin. Lisa Gretzky in Windsor had a seven per cent win for the NDP in 2022 and London’s Terence Kernaghan had nine per cent.
Polling conducted on the opening two days of the campaign for Global News found the NDP vote strongest in southwestern Ontario but still trailing the Progressive Conservatives.
The PC campaign ignored questions for this story before publication.
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Ford isn’t the only leader visiting the southwest, with several NDP stops already in the area and more on the agenda for the coming days.
On the third day of the campaign, NDP Leader Stiles visited Gretzky’s campaign for a photo opportunity in Windsor, also holding a news conference in Windsor—Tecumseh, which the PCs won last time around.
On Monday, she began driving west, stopping in Niagara Centre where Burch is seeking re-election.
She made a separate stop in Hamilton Centre, where a new NDP candidate is hoping to win the riding back from independent Sarah Jama, who was removed from the party in 2023.
Tuesday sees Stiles canvassing in London.
Eyes on the north
Both Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie and Stiles have made trips to northern Ontario during the campaign, appearing in ridings their parties failed to win last time around.
The NDP chose to launch its health-care platform in Sault Ste. Marie. It’s a northern city where the party is hoping to make gains and blame the previous government for an incident at the start of this year when local Steelworkers lost access to a family doctor.
The riding was won by the PCs’ Ross Romano in 2022 but the former chief whip chose not to run again. The NDP is running a local councillor in the riding, hoping for a name-recognition boost.
One campaign source told Global News the NDP is feeling particularly optimistic about the riding. They say roughly 100 people came out in the snow to see Stiles when she arrived.
Sault Ste. Marie is one of several PC wins from 2022 that the NDP hopes it can flip. The vast majority of places Stiles has visited in the first two weeks of the campaign voted either NDP or PC in 2022 — the leader has visited one lone Liberal riding so far.
Beyond Sault Ste. Marie, hours up the Trans-Canada Highway in Thunder Bay, Crombie has also been campaigning. She made a series of visits to two ridings in the northern hub, one won by the NDP and the other by the PCs in 2022.
Ford’s campaign is yet to make a stop in the north.
Toronto and Peel Region fight
Seat-rich Toronto and the surrounding 905 are key battlegrounds in every election and 2025 looks set to be no different.
In 2022, the PCs completed a sweep of every suburban riding around the city with the exception of Oshawa, won by the NDP.
This time around, the Ontario Liberals hope to mount a suburban battle, especially in Brampton and Mississauga. Their leader, Crombie, was mayor of Mississauga for a decade before entering provincial politics, something the party hopes to leverage.
One Liberal campaign source said Crombie’s name recognition in the region was “second to none” with canvassing stops slowed by requests for photos with the former mayor.
Crombie, who didn’t hold a seat at dissolution, is running in Mississauga East—Cooksville, where she spent the entire second day of the campaign.
She’s also stopped in Brampton for an announcement, although the riding in which she held that event didn’t yet have a party candidate nominated to run.
The PCs — who won all 11 of Peel Region’s seats in 2022, up from eight in 2018 — have also sent Ford to the region. The Progressive Conservative leader made two stops at the beginning of February in Brampton ridings, holding a news conference and launching a local campaign.
The Liberals and NDP have made several visits to the ridings in Toronto’s 416 area. Both held news conferences in Spadina—Fort York on Monday — the riding was won by the NDP’s Chris Glover in 2022.
Focused Green Party campaign
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, who has an electric car instead of a battle bus, has been focused on a select few ridings in his campaigning.
Schreiner won Guelph in 2022 and added a second MPP to his party’s fold at the end of 2023 when his party won the Kitchener Centre byelection. He has devoted significant time already in the campaign to those ridings as he looks to win both again.
He’s also headed north several times to Parry Sound—Muskoka, where the Greens came within striking distance of winning in 2022. In the last election, the PCs’ Graydon Smith won 20,216 votes and the Greens’ Matt Richter won 18,102.
Both are running again.
Additionally, Schreiner has spent time in Wellington-Halton Hills. The rural riding was represented by Ted Arnott, who ran under the Progressive Conservative banner but served as the Speaker.