Ontario Liberals still without new leader after 2nd round of ranked voting released

The Ontario Liberal leadership race is going to a third round of ranked ballot voting Saturday after no candidate reached the threshold to win in the second round.

Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie is still in the lead while Nate Erskine-Smith is in second.

Yasir Naqvi, Liberal MP and former provincial cabinet minister, has been eliminated after the second round. The party is now moving on to a third round of ballot-counting, with results expected sometime around 4:30 p.m. ET. You'll be able to watch live in this story.

Members ranked candidates from one through four, and points were awarded on a weighted system depending on how many people vote in each of the province's 124 ridings. There were a total of 12,940 points up for grabs, and a candidate needs to receive more than 50 per cent to win.

Crombie is leading with 47 per cent of points, up from 43 per cent in the first round. Erskine-Smith has 29 per cent of points, up from 25 per cent in the first round of voting.

It would not be surprising to see Erskine-Smith receive a signifcant bump in votes after Naqvi was eliminated from the contest. The two candidates struck a deal in early November in an attempt to block Crombie's path to victory, with each asking their supporters to rank the other number two on the ranked ballot.

Supporters of the two were not obligated to follow the candidates' pact.

None of the remaining candidates have seats in the provincial legislature, so the eventual winner will have to decide whether to look for a riding in which to run or to stay outside the chamber and build the party that way.

Former premier Dalton McGuinty spoke at the leadership convention Saturday and said the four candidates brought excitement and energy to the party and are responsible for renewing it.

"Our job beginning today is to rally behind the new leader and give them that support," he told the crowd.

"Then in the days and years that follow, our job is essentially threefold: encourage our leader, support our leader, defend our leader. All this demands…that we come together and stay together, and it's important to understand — we don't just owe our unity to our leader and to our party, we owe it to our province."

A timeline of recent Ontario Liberal leaders

• Dalton McGuinty, 1996 to 2013 — McGuinty announced his resignation in 2012, paving the way for an intense leadership competition.

• Kathleen Wynne, 2013 to 2018 — Wynne stepped down after her party was defeated by the Progressive Conservatives.

• John Fraser, 2018 to 2020 — Fraser served as the party's interim leader.

• Steven Del Duca, 2020-2022 — Del Duca stepped down after the PCs once again defeated the Liberals in the 2022 election.

• John Fraser, 2022 until today — Fraser said he has ruled out a third stint as interim leader.