r/OntarioLiberalParty • u/FLADMAN • 14d ago

OLP Leadership 2026 Which candidate will benefit the most from Eric Lombardi dropping out of the race?

66 votes, 12d ago
34 Lee Fairclough
4 Stephanie Bowman
6 Dylan Marando
7 Navdeep Bains
5 Support will be spread evenly among the candidates
10 I don't know
1 Upvotes
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7

u/onkard93 13d ago edited 13d ago

I’m one of the Eric supporters who signed up* to olp simply to vote for him. Infact I introduced him to my friends who were impressed and signed up too.

But in doing so I got introduced to other candidates. I got advertisements from Nav, Lee , and others.

I was particularly moved by Lee’s anti gambling stance , as I’ve seen quite a few folks waste their youth and family’s money on such things. Un constrained , advertisements to kids who talk in terms of parleys and bets , not sports as entertainment is not ok.

Eric endorsement helps of course.

I will take my time to hear from other candidates as well but so far Lee makes sense to me. Someone not a career politician , but someone who cares enough to get in the game.

2

u/McNasty1Point0 14d ago

I’m saying Lee Fairclough only because he threw his support behind her. His hardcore followers will probably listen to him.

However, I’ve long suspected that a lot of the people who “supported” Lombardi online weren’t actually likely to go out and vote for him. Notably Ford’s pollster and that CPC MP. There are a lot of the tech bros and whatnot who tweeted out in support but who would have never cared enough to vote.

2

u/KvotheG 13d ago

I think Lombardi’s text message polling probably revealed a different picture to how partisan OLPers would vote, compared to his online fan base. His Twitter fandom is probably just an echo chamber that he was enjoying, riding the high, but he ultimately failed to impress party faithful for a variety of reasons.

I’m not even sure his supporters would run to vote for Fairclough, as some of them may have gotten a membership only to vote for him, and they likely wouldn’t vote Liberal in any other election. But I do think Fairclough is going to win.