Liberal candidate Larry Ingram gathered with a small group Monday night to watch the election results come in — celebrating as the Liberals secured a national victory.
While the candidate for Battlefords-Lloydminster-Meadow Lake didn't win the race, Ingram still finished second place behind the eventual winner in incumbent Conservative Rosemarie Falk. Ingram picked up 5,943 votes, good enough for over 17 per cent of the voting share, though only 90 per cent of polls were reporting at the time of writing.
It's a familiar spot for Ingram, a local Liberal candidate since the 2015 election, as he talked about election night from his perspective.
"I'm happy that we won federally, that makes it quite positive. In our local riding, we came close to tripling the numbers from 2500 up to close to 7000. That was a real boost." said Ingram, as in the past he's only collected around 10 per cent of the vote share.
Ingram suggested the boost in support may have come from higher voter turnout, including some first-time voters. While Falk’s win was decisive, he said he’s encouraged by the progress Liberals made during the snap election.
"I think that it's turned out to be a positive experience. I really want to thank all the people that voted, and all the people that helped (me organize), and were out campaigning with me, putting up signs, and doing the legwork."
While the riding stayed firmly in the Conservative favour, Ingram was happy to see the inroads being made with constituents.
"We made really strong gains here in the Battlefords-Lloydminster-Meadow Lake riding. I think it's a positive all the way around for us here, might not be for some other people, but for us here it is really positive."
*William Petryk of the NDP finished third with over 1500 votes and a share around 5 per cent, and Darrell Patan with the Canadian Future Party finished fourth with 238 total votes and less than a percentage of the riding.
*Available polling data