Conservative Jamil Jivani cruises to victory in Durham byelection | Maqvi News

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Durham Region is staying true blue with Jamil Jivani leading by a wide margin in Monday’s federal byelection.

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The region has been held by the Tories for two decades and that doesn’t seem to be changing after voters went to the polls to elect a new member of Parliament.

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The byelection was called in January after Erin O’Toole announced his retirement from politics and resigned from his seat last year. O’Toole, who was among those congratulating Jivani on social media as he pulled away in the race with a more than 30-percentage-point lead, held the riding for the Conservatives for 11 years and also led the party in the 2021 federal election.

Congratulations to @JamilJivani & the Durham CPC team on his big byelection win. I know he will be a strong voice for Durham in Ottawa

— Erin O’Toole (@erinotoole) March 5, 2024

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“I know he will be a strong voice for Durham in Ottawa,” O’Toole said Monday night on X.

Polls closed at 8:30 p.m. and Jivani jumped to an early lead, securing 13,744 votes — or about 55.7% of ballots cast — with 195 out of 225 polls reporting.

Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre also congratulated the “common sense Conservative” on the victory at about 10 p.m.

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His closest competitor, the Liberals’ Robert Rock, was in second with 5,372 votes (22.2%), followed by the New Democratic Party’s Chris Borgia with 2,612 votes (10.8%).

Jivani is a conservative commentator and author and penned opinion columns for the Toronto Sun before throwing his hat in the federal ring.

The 36-year-old is the founder of the Policing Literacy Initiative and Teachers Beyond the Classroom. He sat on Premier Doug Ford’s council on equality of opportunity and was appointed the advocate for community opportunities for the Ford government.

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Jivani was born in Toronto to an immigrant father from Kenya and a Scottish-Irish mother from the U.K. He attended Humber College, York University and in 2013 earned his juris doctor from Yale Law School.

The byelection comes as public polling suggests Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives hold a double-digit lead over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

Durham has roughly 116,250 registered voters and includes a mix of suburban and rural areas.

O’Toole won re-election by at least nine percentage points in 2015, 2019 and 2021.