Trump tariffs and sovereignty threats key issues in riding

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Kathy Borrelli helped complete the Conservative sweep of Windsor-Essex.

Borrelli managed to oust Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk in a tight race that saw her making her victory speech to a few dozen remaining supporters at John Max Sports and Wings restaurant on Lauzon Parkway at about 1 a.m. With just two polls remaining to report, she held a lead of 737 votes. The race had been close, within two hundred votes for much of the night, but Borrelli’s lead began to slowly widen later in the evening, with 31,682 votes, for 45.7 per cent of the vote.

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Borrelli’s chief of staff, Alana Fryer, called the victory “historic” given she would be the first female to win the riding, the first Conservative in a century and the first person to come from third place in a previous election. Borrelli ran in 2021 in Windsor-Tecumseh.

Borrelli said she’ll work to make things better for her constituents.

“For all of my career and all of my volunteer efforts, I’ve worked hard to help people improve their life situations, and this job will be no different for me,” she told cheering supporters. “I see it as an opportunity to uplift people, help improve their lives, make things better for our community.”

The registered nurse and entrepreneur, who has operated several Windsor restaurants and nightclubs, may not have held office before, but she knows about politics, given her husband Paul Borrelli was a former Windsor city councillor.

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The potential to win became apparent early in the campaign with the reaction she was getting from constituents, she said.

“From the very first day of the campaign, knocking on those first doors and greeting all of the volunteers who stepped forward to work so hard, I felt the tremendous passion that exists here in Windsor Tecumseh Lakeshore. A passion, a hope for a better future.”

Her campaign’s CFO, Tony Francis, said reaction from constituents Borrelli met at the door wasn’t reflected in published polling results.

“We put a lot more credibility in what we’re hearing at the doors than we did at the polls,” Francis said. “We put a lot more weight on what our canvassers were hearing, because you’re hearing it first-hand from the people. And people were so energetic and enthusiastic at the door. I’ve never seen that before.”

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Meanwhile, Kusmierczyk — who brought millions in government funding to the area while working as a Liberal representative — said he gave it his all, after posting a pair of election victories in 2019 and 2021 by less than 700 votes each.

“We knew going in, it was going to be tight,” Kusmierczyk said. “We put everything into the last six years and the last six weeks. We left everything on the ice.” 

The riding has been one of the tightest races in the nation in the past two federal elections with Kusmierczyk edging the NDP candidate on each occasion. 

However, the NDP vote in the riding collapsed Monday, dropping nearly 25 per cent from 2021 to less than seven per cent. In the two-way race, Borelli more than doubled her vote total from 2021 (14,605). 

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Kusmierczyk also received over 10,000 more votes than the previous election.  

“This is really such a unique and historic election,” said Kusmiercyzk of the NDP vote melting away. 

“This year we’ll have the battery plant, the Gordie Howe bridge opening and the Ojibway Urban Park. That’s a great legacy.” 

Further intrigue gripped the riding in this election with a boundary change that added 29 square kilometres and 8,300 more eligible voters from Lakeshore and Essex.

The riding also has displayed a split political personality as it has handed Progressive Conservative MPP Andrew Dowie comfortable wins in the past two Ontario elections, the most recent of those being just two months ago.

However, the economic and sovereignty threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump become the dominant theme with the Windsor region on the frontline of the trade war between the U.S. and Canada.

The collapse of the NDP in the national polls turned the election into a two-way battle between the Liberals and Conservatives. The NDP hadn’t failed to get at least 30 per cent of the vote in the riding since 1993 (21.57 per cent).

People’s Party of Canada candidate Nick Babic, who showed up at Borrelli’s victory event, garnered 821 votes, Centerist Part of Canada candidate Helmi Charif drew 223 votes and the Christian Heritage Party’s Beth St. Denis drew 195 votes.

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