Windsor West becomes child’s play for incumbent Masse

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Windsor West incumbent Brian Masse spoke enthusiastically of “getting back to work” on Tuesday, while expressing relief and gratitude after a landslide victory over two-time Liberal rival Sandra Pupatello.

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“That is something that I am very aware of during the campaign, not to disappoint the people who have supported me for so long,” said Masse, the longest-serving MP in the NDP now entering his eighth term in the NDP. Parliament. First elected in 2002, Monday’s victory practically ensures that he will soon enter his third decade of federal politics.

“Oh God, I’ve never thought of it that way,” Masse, 53, told reporters Tuesday morning after an election night that lasted well into the early hours of the next day. He had slept for two hours before getting up to help with the collection and storage of signs on the lawn so they are ready for the next election.

High on Parliament’s to-do list are: securing the rescue of Ojibway Shores and the creation of a new urban national park; pass legislation to prevent a future closure of the air traffic control tower at Windsor International Airport; deliver on a promise of an NDP campaign to lower Canadian cell phone rates; and addressing the affordable housing crisis.

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Returning to Ottawa allows him to continue his previous efforts, as well as set his sights on new goals, he said.

“I see it as a new adventure every time and I have to earn the right to represent this place every day.”

The first polls that came in on election night had Masse and Pupatello side by side with about 40 percent of the vote. But then they started to separate. By midnight, it was clear that he had won comfortably, regardless of the 2,500 mail-in ballots still to be counted on Wednesday.

By Tuesday, all but the mail-in votes counted, Mass had 20,409 votes, or 44.1 percent of the total, compared to Pupatello’s 12,758 votes or 27.6 percent. While Masse had about the same number of votes as the 20,800 he got in 2019, Pupatello, a former liberal provincial cabinet minister who served in Windsor West from 1995 to 2011, received just 12,758 votes compared to 18,878 he received in 2019.

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“You know, it’s a shame, turnout was really low,” Pupatello said Tuesday, referring to the 50.2 percent turnout that was five percentage points below Windsor West’s turnout in the previous two elections and far behind. down from 58.4 percent in neighboring Windsor-Tecumseh.

“The NDP got the numbers they always get and the Liberals stayed home,” Pupatello said.

He said he was not thinking about whether this is the end of his political career, as he lost the last two federal elections in his career.

“For now I’m going to go back to work (a consulting business), that’s my immediate plan.”

She said voters clearly did not want to vote for the Liberals.

“People don’t want to see changes, then they get what they have and I just have to accept it,” he said.

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In third place was the conservative Anthony Orlando with 19.4%, similar to the 19.1% obtained by the conservative Henry Lau in 2019.The candidate of the People’s Party of Canada, Matthew Giancola, obtained 8.6% of the votes on Monday, much more than the 1.8% obtained by the PPC. Candidate Darryl Burrel received in 2019.

Masse has historically crushed his Windsor West opponents. His closest margin was about seven percentage points when he first ran in 2002, but in the seven seasons since he won by margins of up to 30 points.

The gap between Masse and Pupatello was “a good margin, there’s no question about it,” Masse said Tuesday. But even though the incoming poll results Monday night showed him in pretty good shape, he wouldn’t claim victory until around 12:30 a.m. when the anticipated poll results came in. He and his team knew early polls were key because they had 12,000 votes, about a quarter of all votes cast.

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“Everything was taking shape the way it was supposed to, but the big anomaly was the 12,000 that were arriving and we had to wait,” Masse said. “We had to respect the voters and we didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

In the end, Masse had strong support in early polls, similar to his strong overall support. Masse said he lost perhaps six of the 236 polls in Windsor West.

“I am grateful to have received this kind of support from the people of Windsor West,” Masse said. “I think they recognize that we have worked very hard on a lot of issues … and that they have returned to someone who is so connected to their community on a regular basis.”

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