Hamilton-Est—Stoney Creek
Provincial by-election in Ontario on September 3, 2026, after the departure of Neil Lumsden (Progressive Conservative).
The Ontario Liberals is the favourite, with a 50% chance of winning and 34% of the projected vote.
Results
Connecting to the official count…
Preliminary results · Elections Ontario
The forecast
| Party | Projected share | Range (80%) | Chance of winning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heino Doessing Ontario Liberal | 34.1% | | 50% |
| Jeff Beattie Progressive Conservative | 33.4% | | 41% |
| Monique Taylor Ontario NDP | 23.2% | | 9% |
| Other | 4.9% | | <1% |
| Pascale Marchand Ontario Green | 4.3% | | <1% |
Seven points are stripped from the Progressive Conservative baseline — the share that tracked Lumsden rather than his party. No by-election turnout residual is applied: the one Vote-Scope has measured comes from the April 2026 federal by-elections, and transposing a federal measurement to a provincial contest would be an assumption, not a finding.
The local poll
The poll carries about <1% of the riding’s starting point, before the simulations run. That weight rises with each new poll, according to its size and date.
One firm, one wave. Sample size, margin of error and method were not published, so we treat it with wide uncertainty.
What the forecast adjusts
- Personal vote removed
- 7 points removed from the Progressive Conservative vote: the share that went to Neil Lumsden rather than to the party. 39.3% → 32.3%
The 2025 result
The race
The Progressive Conservatives ran 11.7 points behind their provincial score here in 2018. Under Neil Lumsden — a former CFL player and Tiger-Cats executive — that deficit shrank to 0.9 points by 2025. He is gone, the party is carrying a scandal, and the Ontario Liberals now lead province-wide.
- Neil Lumsden left the Ford cabinet amid the hotel controversy and then resigned his seat.
- Progressive Conservative share versus their province-wide score: +2.9 points (2011), −4.2 (2014), −11.7 (2018) — the riding leaned AGAINST them before he arrived.
- After Lumsden won in 2022 the deficit closed: −6.2 (2022), then −0.9 (2025). Roughly seven points recovered by a locally famous sports figure.
- The Progressive Conservative candidate is Hamilton Ward 10 councillor Jeff Beattie; the Liberals renominated Heino Doessing, who lost to Lumsden in 2025.