Liberals were just 611 votes from a majority government. Here’s how
With the dust mostly settled on the 2025 federal election, the Liberals won 169 seats in the House of Commons for a minority government, but how close were they to nabbing three ridings that would have secured a majority?
A mere 611 votes across two Ontario ridings and Nunavut.
That’s according to the fact-checking and quick math by Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer at Ottawa-based Pollara Strategic Insights and a former pollster for prime minister Justin Trudeau, who posted his findings to X on Tuesday.
The Liberals finish just 611 votes away from a majority.
— Dan Arnold (@calgarygrit) April 29, 2025
It might be cliche, but Arnold said the results serve as a reminder that every vote really does count.
“This is an election where that’s the case, because there is a real difference between a majority and a minority in terms of the long-term life of a government,” he said.
Arnold zeroed in on the three closest races that could have tipped the Liberals into a majority had they won them. National Post examined Elections Canada data for the ridings to confirm Arnold’s findings.
In Milton East–Halton Hills South, Conservative Parm Gill — a Stephen Harper-era MP — edged Liberal Kristina Tesser Derksen by 298 votes (32,186 to 31,888). Further south in Windsor–Tecumseh–Lakeshore, Tory Kathy Borrelli finished 233 ballots ahead of Liberal incumbent Irek Kusmierczyk (31,901 to 31,668).
Meanwhile, in Nunavut, where turnout was lowest anywhere in Canada at barely over 36 per cent, NDP MP Lori Idlout had 77 more supporters to retain her seat against Liberal challenger Kilikvak Kabloona (2,945 to 2,868).
Technically, as Arnold told National Post, the Liberals needed 608 votes across the three ridings to tie and one additional vote to secure the win.
Even had the Liberals won by a single vote in the three ridings, it would have precipitated a judicial recount, which the returning officer is required to call when the margin of victory is less than one one-thousandth of all votes cast.
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A candidate or an elector may also request a judicial recount within four days of the results being validated by submitting a payment and a signed affidavit explaining why a recount is warranted. Arnold doesn’t expect a recount to be called for any of the three ridings.
Once the results are validated, however, there will likely be automatic judicial recounts of the results in two tightly contested ridings: Terrebonne, Que., where Liberal Tatiana Auguste had 35 more votes than Bloc Québécois incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (23,296 to 23,261), and Terra Nova–The Peninsulas in Newfoundland where the Liberals’ Anthony Germain defeated Conservative Jonathan Rowe by just 12 votes (19,704 to 19,692).
“Usually, vote totals don’t swing by more than five or 10 or more votes in their recount, but the Newfoundland riding was close enough that I guess that’s one that there’s certainly a possibility that the count could come back differently,” Arnold suggested.
In the 2021 election, a possible issue with one of the ballot boxes in the Quebec riding of Châteauguay–Lacolle forced a recount that would see the Bloc Québécois’ Patrick O’Hara, who’d won by more than 280 votes in preliminary results, ultimately lose to Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan by 12.
Should Liberals lose the Newfoundland seat, Arnold doesn’t think it will matter this early in the parliamentary session.
“Either way, at least for the short term, it’s a minority government in need of either the NDP or the Bloc or the Conservatives to support them.”
Another tidbit Arnold uncovered while perusing the numbers was that for the first time since the 1930 election, the top two parties each collected more than 40 per cent of the vote in the same election campaign.
In multiple previous elections, turnout for the Liberals and Conservatives has been in the low 30s, with the NDP and Bloc traditionally garnering more support. Both picked up just 6.3 per cent each this time.
“It does appear to be a movement more towards a two-party system, and whether or not that’s just a one election blip or it’s part of a longer trend, I guess we’ll find out in a couple of years, but it’s a very different dynamic than we’re used to in Canada,” Arnold said.
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