Rachel Chernos Lin has won the Don Valley West by-election with nearly 55 percent of the vote, beating competitor Anthony Furey by more than 20 points in what began as a wide-open race, but had in recent weeks become a battle of political polarization between the two leading candidates.
Chernos Lin, a Toronto District School Board trustee and the current chair, ended the night with 12,899 votes, followed by Furey with 7,343. Sam Robinson, son of former ward councillor Jaye Robinson, came in third with 1,271 votes.
Weeks earlier, Furey told The Local that the partisan divisions that had seeped into the by-election were working in his campaign’s favour. Furey, a right-wing candidate and former newspaper pundit who critics say has fuelled anti-Islam and transphobic sentiment, has previously worked with conservative media outlets like True North and the Toronto Sun. In late October, less than a week before advanced voting, Liberal party-affiliated candidates Dhruv Jain and Evan Sambasivam suspended their campaigns and endorsed Chernos Lin due to fears of splitting the vote and enabling a Furey victory. (Their names still appeared on the ballot, and they each received less than one percent of the vote.)
Rachel Chernos Lin Wins Don Valley West By-Election – The Local, November 4, 2024
