It’s becoming ever more clear that the race for Trinity-Spadina will be between the NDP’s young Joe Cressy and well known city councillor Adam Vaughan for the Liberals.

Ryan Davey, who recently announced his intentions of seeking the Liberal nomination, dropped out of the race just days ahead of the party’s nomination meeting on May 3, with a statement on his website accusing Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau of hand-picking the riding’s candidate.

Christine Tabbert, also formerly seeking the nomination, withdrew her bid this week, announcing her new role as co-chair of Vaughan’s campaign.

Davey is unhappy with what he calls Vaughan’s “de facto appointment.” The nomination process, he says, isn’t as transparent and democratic as was promised it would be.

“While it’s the leader’s prerogative to recruit and select candidates, the clear identification of favoured candidates creates an imbalance in support that is difficult to overcome for other candidates,” Davey wrote.

Davey added that a nomination rule change in the riding made it so that all candidates received membership lists and forms before being green lit, which he says gave Vaughan critical information that every other candidate had waited weeks to receive.

“Regardless of the outcome, these circumstances have not been consistent with an open nomination process.”

So Davey’s out of the game.

Meanwhile in the NDP camp, Joe Cressy’s team is happy to provide their own accusations about things the Liberal leader has done, or in this case, didn’t do.

In an announcement Thursday morning, in which Cressy shared plans to pick up where former Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow left off with a national transit strategy, the NDP candidate pointed out that the last time Chow’s appeared in the House of Commons, Trudeau was nowhere to be seen.

Cressy, too, was joined by five out of Toronto’s 44 city councillors — councillors Gord Perks, Janet Davis, Joe Mihevc, Paula Fletcher and Mike Layton — endorsing his bid to head to Ottawa as an MP, as well as his bid to create a Chow-like transit strategy.

As yet, the government hasn’t announced a date for any of the five upcoming federal byelections — but is expected to do so soon, with the last day for a Macleod byelection announcement coming this month.

The bid for the Liberal nomination in Trinity-Spadina, to be decided Saturday, is now between two candidates: Adam Vaughan and Scott Bowman.