Steven Del Duca appears to have a stranglehold on the Ontario Liberal leadership race after dominating the party’s weekend delegate elections.

Preliminary results suggest the former Vaughan MPP and cabinet minister is well ahead of his rivals with MPP Michael Coteau (Don Valley East) and one-time London candidate Kate Graham, who were in a battle for second place.

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

Across Ontario on Saturday and Sunday, thousands of party members voted for 2,092 delegates who will be eligible to cast ballots at the March 7 leadership convention in Mississauga.

The elected delegates and some 400 “ex officios” — sitting and past Liberal MPPs, current Liberal 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 party said in a statement Sunday.

While Sunday’s results were still being tabulated, the unofficial tally from Saturday saw Del Duca supporters win 570 of 911 delegate spots up for grabs — or 62.5 per cent.

Initial counting Sunday suggested that overall more than half of the elected delegates were committed to Del Duca.

Those backing Graham, benefiting from her regional strength in southwestern Ontario, which voted in the first day of delegate selection meetings, took 151 positions or 16.5 per cent on Saturday.

Coteau’s team – which, sources said, improved their standing on Sunday because that was when Toronto ridings were voting — won 107 or 11.7 per cent on Saturday.

MPP Mitzie Hunter (Scarborough-Guildwood) won 37 delegates on the first day of voting.

Alvin Tedjo, a former candidate in Oakville North Burlington, secured 25.

Ottawa lawyer Brenda Hollingsworth won 6 delegates.

Eighteen delegates were elected as Independents on Saturday.

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.

On Sunday, the voting was held in Toronto, York, Durham, Simcoe, Ottawa, and Eastern Ontario and the ridings of Dufferin-Caledon and Parry Sound-Muskoka.

Saturday’s meetings were held in Peel, Halton, Hamilton, Niagara, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Windsor, and much of Northern Ontario.

Del Duca — like Coteau and Hunter — served in premier Kathleen Wynne’s cabinet until the Liberals were trounced by Premier Doug Fords’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.

Sources say 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 groups was inconclusive, confided one senior Conservative.

“Nobody knew who the hell he was,” noted a PC official, speaking on condition on anonymity in order to discuss internal strategic discussions.

As well, 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.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The online campaign is designed to appears as if it’s being pushed by Liberals backing other leadership candidates.

Until 2018, the Grits had governed Ontario under Wynne and her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, for almost 15 years.

The next provincial election is in June 2022.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

Read more about: