#587 - Election 2026 Result

The Result in Rideau-Rockcliffe: What 1,812 Votes and 30% Turnout Tell Us

Rawlson King has been re-elected in Ward 13. On the preliminary results, with 160 of 163 tabulators reporting, he received 7,888 votes (81.32%) and I received 1,812 (18.68%). Congratulations to him, and my thanks to everyone who voted, whichever way.

I said eight days ago that closing an 8,000-vote gap wasn’t realistic, and it wasn’t. My own goal was 2,500 votes. I fell short of it. But in 2022 I received 815 votes. This time it was 1,812, more than double, and I’ll take that as a sign that the arguments reached people.

The number that matters most

The more important figure isn’t mine or King’s. It’s turnout. Of 33,545 eligible electors, 10,205 cast ballots: 30.42%. That means roughly 23,000 residents of this ward did not vote.

The winning candidate received the votes of about 23.5% of eligible electors, and I received about 5.4%. The remaining 70% chose neither, and the result is a contest in which the outcome was decided by a small share of the people it affects. This is what I’ve been arguing all campaign: low turnout entrenches incumbents. In Ottawa they win every time, and urban wards get outvoted 16-9 on council by suburban ones. Those aren’t claims about any one councillor. They’re how the system is built.

What the campaign was for

My primary goal was to create space for public debate in this ward, win or lose. Judged on that, the campaign did something. My landing page passed 6,200 views, my debate video reached more than 1,450 (about 70% above 2022), and several blog posts drew hundreds of readers, some over 800. Residents wrote, emailed and called with messages of support, unprompted, none of them negative. A ward that votes at 30% still read, watched and argued, so the attention exists. What’s missing is a reason to turn it into a vote.

The issues don’t go away

The East End Crossing is still the most significant infrastructure decision in this ward and the city. The truck traffic on King Edward and Rideau, the delay on the Hemlock Road connection in Wateridge, the state of Bathgate Park and Jetform Park, open city data, OC Transpo reliability and the combined sewer systems all remain. They’ll be decided on council, and I intend to keep holding that process to measurable outcomes rather than outputs.

What’s next

This was my last run for office. I don’t need an election to keep writing, analyzing data or asking questions about how Ottawa spends its money and makes its decisions, and I’ll keep doing all three here and on Unpublished.ca.

To everyone who read, shared, questioned, voted or knocked back a card I left at the door: thank you. The next four years need your attention more than any candidate’s.