By 10:45 p.m., Sweet’s campaign manager, Dan Muys, was confident enough in his candidate’s 2-to1 margin over Liberal challenger Arlene MacFarlane-VanderBeek to predict victory to supporters at Flamborough Hills Golf Club.

With 83,587 voters registered in the riding’s 253 polls, Liberal supporters were hoping to make up the difference as polls from Westdale and Dundas were reported, but it was not to be.

“This is not what we worked for,” MacFarlane-VanderBeek told about 40 supporters at her Dundas campaign office as she thanked them for their hard work. “I’m sorry we didn’t win, but there were good candidates out there and there will be another election.”

For NDP candidate Gordon Guyatt, his fourth defeat in his attempt to gain the federal ADFW seat was “bittersweet.” However, he was buoyed by the party’s success across Hamilton. He praised the 50-100 people who “worked very, very hard” on his campaign over the past five weeks.

With 203 polls reporting preliminary results, Sweet remained the frontrunner at 11:30 p.m. with 19,887 votes (46.7 per cent) – ahead of the 39.1 per cent he received in 2006. MacFarlane-Vanderbeek earned 11,611 votes (27.3 per cent), Guyatt was third with 7,013 votes (16.5 per cent), Green candidate Peter Ormond received 3,957 ballots (9.3 per cent) and Marxist-Leninist candidate Jamilé Ghaddar had 122 votes (.3 per cent).

For complete election coverage, see the Friday, October 17 issue of the Flamborough Review.