Steven Del Duca enjoyed the support of about 54 per cent of Liberal leadership delegates after this weekend’s voting.

Unofficial results suggest the former Vaughan MPP and cabinet minister is far ahead of his main rivals MPP Michael Coteau (Don Valley East) and one-time London candidate Kate Graham.

“I am truly humbled by the vote of confidence I have received from our party membership,” Del Duca said in a statement Sunday night.

With five northern ridings still to report, he had 1,123 delegates elected of the 2,092 up for grabs.

Coteau was second with 366 delegates followed by Graham with 269.

MPP Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough-Guildwood) won 104 delegates.

Alvin Tedjo, a former candidate in Oakville North Burlington, secured 67.

Ottawa lawyer Brenda Hollingsworth won 25 delegates.

There were 42 delegates elected as Independents.

Across Ontario on Saturday and Sunday, thousands of party members voted for the delegates eligible to cast ballots at the March 7 leadership convention in Mississauga.

Only those elected delegates and some 400 “ex officios” — sitting and past Liberal MPPs, current Grit MPs from Ontario, and party insiders — will be able to cast ballots at next month’s Mississauga convention.

“We’ll release the official results from the leadership election meetings this weekend as soon as we are able to. Validating results may take a few days,” the Liberals said in a statement Sunday.

Over the weekend, more than 5,100 people competed for 16 delegate spots in each of the 124 ridings as well as at campus and women’s clubs.

Like Coteau and Hunter, Del Duca served in premier Kathleen Wynne’s cabinet until the Liberals were trounced by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the June 2018 election.

He lost his Vaughan seat to Tory Michael Tibollo in the PC landslide that reduced the Liberals to just seven MPPs in the 124-member legislature.

Despite that, Ford’s Tories, who trail the leaderless Liberals in some polls, are taking the Del Duca threat seriously.

As first reported by the Star on Sunday, the PC party has spent tens of thousands of dollars on focus groups to determine how voters might view him.

The first round of those focus group sessions was inconclusive, confided one senior Conservative, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal strategic discussions.

“Nobody knew who the hell he was,” the PC official noted.

At the same time, a right-wing activist linked to Ontario Proud and Canada Proud, which buy social media and TV ads attacking Liberals, appears to be behind the Anybody But Del Duca Facebook page, Twitter account, and website.

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That online campaign is designed to appear as if it’s being run by Liberals backing other leadership candidates.

The Liberals governed Ontario under Wynne and her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, for almost 15 years between 2003 and 2018.

Ontario’s next provincial election is in June 2022.

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