Olivia Chow keeps job as Toronto mayor with decisive victory over Brad Bradford - National Post

Olivia Chow delivers her victory speech following her re-election as Toronto mayor on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. Photo by Peter Power/Postmedia NewsArticle contentTORONTO — Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow was re-elected on Monday night, defeating challenger Brad Bradford, a city councillor, by more than 10 points.

“Now that the election is over, the work of coming together begins,” Chow said in her acceptance speech just before 11 p.m. “I am the mayor of every neighbourhood, every community, every person, every person who calls Toronto home, whatever your background, whatever you believe, whoever you love.

“That’s what being mayor means to me, it means serving everyone,” she said.

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Minutes before, Bradford gave a concession speech saying he “had the opportunity to jump on the phone with Mayor Chow and congratulate her on her re-election.”

“She is the mayor of this city, nobody can doubt that, it’s indisputable, and she has my best wishes,” Bradford said. “I told her something else. I want her to succeed.

“This is not the result that we were hoping for tonight. I can see it on some faces, I feel it too,” he said, and expressed “immense gratitude” for a campaign of “hope and energy.”

“They said it was challenging,” he said, referring to the fact no incumbent Toronto mayor has ever been defeated in a re-election bid since 1998. “Maybe they were right.”

Toronto’s vote was the most closely watched of Ontario’s civic elections, which also saw the surprise victory of Alvin Tedjo as mayor of Mississauga in a tight race over former mayor Bonnie Crombie, who left office to lead the Ontario Liberal party to disappointing results in the last provincial election, and the incumbent Mayor Carolyn Parrish, a former Liberal MP.

In Hamilton, incumbent mayor and former Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath finished well behind political rookie Keanin Loomis, a lawyer and former head of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction. With most of the ballots counted, Loomis had 41 per cent support and Horwath was in third place with 14 per cent. Rob Cooper, a city councillor running on a tax cut platform, had 32 per cent support.