Surrey City Council will have a new mayor for the next four years.
The CTV News decision desk has declared Brenda Locke to win the race for the best job in town. As of 9 p.m., he was leading with 28.1 percent of the votes cast and had a 1,700-vote lead over his closest challenger, incumbent Mayor Doug McCallum.
Former Liberal MP and MP Gordie Hogg came third with 21.9% of the vote.
NDP MP and former MP Jinny Sims, and Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal, two big-name candidates who entered the race against McCallum, came in fourth and fifth, respectively.
After a tumultuous four-year term that saw several councillors, including Locke, leave his Safe Surrey Coalition, McCallum was the focal point of the mayoral campaign.
“It was a very close race from the start, we knew it was going to be close,” said pollster Mario Canseco, president of Research Co.
Canseco said Locke’s position as a former member of McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition helped her make a compelling case that the incumbent’s leadership style was not working.
“I think he connected really well,” Canseco added. “And the results were definitely on their side tonight.”
The early results of the city council elections also showed significant turnover. At 9pm, only Surrey First Councilor Linda Annis and Safe Surrey Coalition Councilor Doug Elford appeared to be up for re-election.
The CTV News decision board has declared Annis to win re-election. Elford was winning his race, but he had not yet been declared the winner.
CTV News has also declared Surrey First council candidate Mike Bose and Surrey Connect candidates Harry Bains, Gordon Hepner and Rob Stutt as elected.
Locke was Surrey Connect’s mayoral candidate, and it looked likely that she would have enough councilors elected from her list to have a slim majority on the next council.
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McCallum’s opponents criticized his proposal to build a 60,000-seat stadium in the city, calling it a “fantasy”. Locke also pledged to reverse McCallum’s signature proposal from the last election: replace the RCMP with a municipal police force.
McCallum also faced criticism for his public nuisance charge, whose trial is scheduled to begin on October 31.
Opposition to the incumbent was widely seen as the catalyst for several big-name candidates entering the race, including Locke, Dhaliwal, Sims and Hogg.
To follow the election results, tune in to CTV News Vancouver for live, commercial-free, up-to-the-minute coverage. The results will also be published regularly online.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates