Three Manitoba ridings have been decided by less than 8 per cent of the vote in the recent federal election, according to data from Elections Canada.
Kildonan St.-Paul has emerged as the tightest race in the province, with Conservative incumbent Raquel Dancho being re-elected to a third term with a victory margin of 2.8 percentage points — the smallest in the province.
Dancho was first elected to the riding in 2019 and defeated the Liberal runner-up Thomas Naaykens in the latest election by just over 1,500 votes, according to the results now validated by the returning officer.
Kildonan St.-Paul and Winnipeg West were the only Manitoba ridings where two candidates both received over 40 per cent of the vote.
The data, obtained from Elections Canada’s website as of May 1 at 8 p.m. CDT, also reveals that the Winnipeg Centre riding had the second smallest victory margin. NDP incumbent Leah Gazan defeated Liberal candidate Rahul Walia by a margin of 4.2 per cent of the votes.
Gazan was first elected to Winnipeg Centre in 2019 and remains the only NDP MP from Manitoba after the defeat of Niki Ashton in Churchill-Keewatinook Aski and Leila Dance in Elmwood-Transcona.
Elmwood-Transcona ranked third for the smallest victory margin, with Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds claiming victory over Dance by a margin of 7.1 percentage points.
Reynolds previously faced off against Dance in a September 2024 by-election in the riding after the resignation of NDP incumbent Daniel Blaikie, losing to Dance by just over four percentage points.
Four safest Manitoba seats are Conservative rural strongholds
Data from Elections Canada also indicates that the four saftest seats in the province — the ridings with the largest victory margins — are all Conservative strongholds in rural Manitoba.
Conservative incumbent Branden Leslie was re-elected in Portage-Lisgar with the largest victory margin in the province, defeating Liberal runner-up Robert Kreis by over 46 per cent of the vote.
Leslie was first elected in the riding in a 2023 by-election after the resignation of Candice Bergen, who served as interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada from February to September 2022.
Portage-Lisgar has been represented by the Conservative Party since the party was founded in 2003, previously being represented by the Canadian Alliance and the Reform Party of Canada.
Conservative incumbent Dan Mazier was also re-elected to Riding Mountain with a 44.4 percentage point victory margin over Liberal challenger Terry Hayward — the second largest in the province. The last time a Liberal candidate was elected to the region was during the 1993 general election when the riding was known as Dauphin-Swan River.
Conservative incumbent Ted Falk was re-elected to Provencher along with Grant Jackson in Brandon-Souris, receiving a victory margin of 40.4 and 39.3 percentage points, respectively.
Elections Canada states that Manitoba had a voter turnout of 67 per cent amongst registered electors in the recent federal election. That figure does not include electors who registered on election day.
