The race in a hotly contested Toronto byelection turned a normally safe red seat into a fierce battleground, causing consternation among Liberals that a seat the party had won by 24-point margin in the 2021 federal election was even close.

But a loss in this riding will set off a new round of questions about the future of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose approval numbers have been sitting at record lows. Some Liberals have been looking at this byelection as a referendum on Trudeau’s future, while others have argued the party can’t stake its future on the vote count in a single riding.

This was no ordinary byelection, though. At 44 per cent, turnout was high for a June vote in the middle of Toronto, wrote Darrell Bricker, the CEO Ipsos Public Affairs, on Twitter.

“This was a workday Monday in a riding that is a Toronto traffic nightmare. This shows a strong desire among voters to send a signal for change,” said Bricker.

And the Liberals threw everything they had at the usually safe seat, with cabinet ministers making regular visits to the riding to knock on doors and rally volunteers. The Conservatives also piled resources into Stewart’s campaign but in the week before the vote they tried to lower expectations, insisting they weren’t going to win. In the end, a final chunk of ballots counted around 4:30 a.m. ET put the Conservative ahead in the final count.

The NDP came in third with 11 per cent of the vote.

An unusually large ballot, with 84 names — most garnering just a few votes each — slowed down the counting, dragging results hours past the closing of the polls.

The downtown Toronto riding had until now been considered a Liberal fortress, which the party has held onto since 1993. Former MP and cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett has represented the riding since 1997 until earlier this year when she stepped down.

Bennett won the riding with a 24-point margin in 2021 and an over 30 point margin in 2019. Even when the Liberals were reduced to just 34 seats in 2011, they comfortably won St. Paul’s with an eight-point lead

Hoping to replace Bennett was Church, who previously served as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s chief of staff, but a strong challenge from the Conservatives’ Stewart sealed the victory.

The NDP put forward Amrit Parhar, the Greens ran Christian Cullis, and the People’s Party was represented by Dennis Wilson.

Most of the names on the unusually large ballot are part of efforts by the activist group the longest ballot committee to run an excessively long list of nominees to call attention to Trudeau’s broken promise on electoral reform.

Elections Canada said Monday night that counting would “take a bit longer than usual to come in, as the unusual size of the ballot may slow down the counting process.” It said it still expected final results in the evening, but delays dragged the final result past 4 a.m. ET.