In the early hours of Friday, Richmond Centre got a new MP – Liberal rookie Wilson Miao, who has unseated four-time incumbent Conservative Alice Wong.
Miao had held a near 700-vote lead after Monday night’s election, but there were around 2,000 mail-in ballots still to be counted.
However, when they were tallied, it did little to affect the outcome, with property developer Miao winning by 662 votes.
If the gap was less than 500, Wong could have requested a recount.
The 73-year-old had previously won four consecutive elections, most of them comfortably.
After 184 of the 185 polls has reported on Monday night, Wong refused to accept defeat.
However, when asked Monday about the massive 22 per cent or so swing from Tory to Liberal in her riding, compared to the 2019 election, she pointed to a campaign to label her party as “anti-Chinese,” which she said may have cost her votes among the Chinese-speaking electorate.
The final results for the riding were:
Wilson Miao (Liberal): 12,701 (39.3 per cent)
Alice Wong (Conservative): 12,039 (37.2)
Sandra Nixon (NDP) 5,849 (18.1)
Laura Gillanders (Green) 1,063 (3.3)
James Hinton (PPC) 707 (2.2)
