New Nanaimo-Ladysmith MP Tamara Kronis celebrates with family and supporters on election night, flipping the riding from NDP orange to Conservative blue. (File Photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

federal election

Top Stories of 2025: High Nanaimo turnout, vote splits and familiar candidates make for unique election

Dec 22, 2025 | 3:06 PM

NANAIMO — The highest voter turnout locally in a decade saw mixed results for voters on the mid-Island in the spring, as one main riding flipped while another stayed the course.

Voters in Nanaimo-Ladysmith turned out in droves and cast ballots for the same five candidates which contested the 2021 Federal Election, won by the NDP’s Lisa Marie Barron.

A roughly 71.82 per cent voter turnout in April 2025 saw a change, as Conservative Tamara Kronis won comfortably, nearly eight percentage points, over Liberal Michelle Corfield.

Incumbent Barron and the Green Party’s Paul Manly were a further nine points behind.

“I am just so grateful of the people of Nanaimo-Ladysmith for giving me this wonderful opportunity,” Kronis said on election night. “To everyone who I talked to on the doorsteps, thank you for sharing your views and your opinions with me. I hope that those conversations are the first of many conversations.”

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The Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding was one where the Conservatives felt they could flip after missing out by around 1,200 votes four years previous.

Party leader Pierre Poilievre made several visits to the riding in the time between elections, including two stops in the months before the spring vote.

In January, Poilievre spoke at a Duke Point business, at an invite-only event, to outline his plans for addressing crime, drug use and housing shortages.

Three and a half months later, Poilievre returned to Duke Point, again another invite-only occasion, to speak on his party’s pitch for criminal justice reform.

The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh was the only other party leader to make a campaign stop in the riding.

Liberal Michelle Corfield on election night at her campaign headquarters on Bowen Rd. (File Photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Makeup of the vote
Despite faltering nationally, the Conservative’s blue wave locally was aided thanks in part to two main factors.

A resurging Liberal Party, via new leader and current Prime Minister Mark Carney, helped local candidate Michelle Corfield place second by more than doubling her share of the vote from 2021.

Corfield told NanaimoNewsNOW on election night they were impressed with the traction gained locally.

“We’ve raised all of the issues that we wanted to raise. We put forestry and the health tower as the front and center, I can’t be more proud of my team and the advancements that we’ve made, and the conversations that we’ve had.”

Another factor aiding a strong Conservative push in the region was a likely vote split between progressive voters.

Support for the Liberals was coupled with an incumbent NDP candidate, as well as Nanaimo City Councillor Paul Manly stepping in for the Green Party.

Each brought supporters who, under other circumstances, might have voted for another party to achieve a desired result.

Early in the campaign, Manly said the vote split wasn’t an issue, suggesting he could return to Ottawa in a capacity he held for two years after winning in 2019.

“I’m not concerned about it. The Greens, we’ve done our own polling and they show me coming in second and what we need to do is galvanize people. You want a fighter in the House of Commons that’s going to be providing a strong opposition voice in the House of Commons? Then I’m that person.”

Lisa Marie Barron speaks with supporters after her election loss Monday night. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Barron exited federal politics quietly, congratulating Kronis on a well-run race, saying she was proud the campaign wasn’t “spreading division or hate”.

She added the vote split was a very real factor in the election night outcome.

“There’s clearly a lot of support and a lot of us that are all wanting to come together and make sure we’re moving in the right direction. We know that the progressive vote has been significantly larger than the Conservatives, if we put those votes together, so I hope that this will be time for us to reflect and come together and come out even stronger at the next election.”

The People’s Party of Canada’s Stephen Welton finished fifth in both 2025 and 2021.

Courtenay-Alberni
For all the focus and attention on Nanaimo-Ladysmith during the campaign, dubbed “one of the most interesting ridings in the country’ by one political science professor, a neighbouring district saw little change.

Gord Johns returned for his fourth term in Ottawa, first representing the area in 2015.

A push federally for the Conservatives translated in a significantly narrower win for Johns this year, compared to 2021.

He fended off Kris McNichol by just five points, a tighter margin than his 12 percentage point victory over then-candidate Mary Lee last election.

“We had a team that was determined, they were committed to standing up for progressive values, on environmental, economic, social justice and for reconciliation,” Johns said on election night. “The message was clear that people wanted to make sure that we had a seat at the table in the House of Commons and that we were standing up for people, and not big corporations.”

Since returning to Ottawa, Johns has had an impact, as one of three NDP MP’s to abstain from voting for or against the federal government’s budget bill in the fall.

Had Johns and others voted against, it would have likely triggered a Christmas election.

“I talked to every single mayor: 9 mayors in my riding, 3 regional district chairs, 17 elected chief counsellors – all of them were unanimous and they didn’t want the government to fall,” he said. “I did consultation. We’re being the adult in the room listening to our constituents who said right now is not the time to have an election.”

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