Two Way Race Shaping Up in Lanark-Frontenac Riding

Jeff Green | Mar 26, 2025

The new Lanark-Frontenac riding is shaping up as a two-way race, in this so called ‘snap election’ that has been widely anticipated since Justin Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister, last December.

Scott Reid was named as the Conservative Party candidate, seeking to extend his 24-year run as an MP in this region, for another term, several months ago.

Michele Foxton secured the Liberal Par ty nomination for her second run in federal politics, last summer, and has been campaigning ever since. It will be an uphill battle for Michelle Foxton to make serious inroads in the Lanark-Frontenac riding, which was created through the most recent riding redistribution process.

Lanark County has elected Conservatives for decades, and while Scott Reid's career has seen several changes in the makeup of his riding, it has always included Lanark County.

The new riding is very similar to the previous riding of Lanark Frontenac Kingston. The only difference is that the Kingston part of the riding, the area south of South Frontenac and north of Highway 401, is no longer in this riding, having returned to the Kingston and the Islands riding, a Liberal stronghold.

The new riding is, if anything, an even safer Conservative seat. One thing that buffets Michele Foxton's chances, aside from her unending enthusiasm and optimism in the face of what looks like an impossible challenge, is the collapse of the local NDP and Green Party vote.

In the very recent Ontario election, in the former Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding, the NDP vote dropped in half, from 20.6% in the most recent provincial election in 2022, to 10.4% this time. The Green vote went the same way, from 6.8% in 2022 to 3.35 in 2025. The Liberal candidate, Rob Rainer, benefited the most, seeing the Liberal vote more than double from 15.9% in 2022 to 32.4% in 2025. The Conservative vote percentage for John Jordan was al most the same in each election, 50.2% in 2022, and 49.35 in 2025.

The NDP and Green vote could drop even further in the Lanark-Frontenac riding this time around, benefiting Michelle Foxton. On a national level, the NDP vote has collapsed in recent polls, and the Green vote has gone down as well, with most of that support going to the Liberals.

The Lanark Frontenac Green and NDP riding associations depend on a very small corps of volunteers, who are shared between the provincial and federal riding associations. Those volunteers were barely able to mount a provincial campaign, and the situation is even more dire for this campaign.

The Green party has named a candidate, Robert Gibson, who lives in Kingston. Green Party riding association said early this week that Gibson will not be “actively campaigning” in the election. The NDP do not have a candidate thus far, and the riding association is hoping to get one in place. They had better hurry as it will be a short campaign. Election day is April 28, just over a month away.

If Michelle Foxton can capture even more of the NDP and Green vote locally, in the face of an non-existent local campaign from the Greens and NDP, a 40% vote share is a real possibility. 40% wins a lot of ridings, but it does not win 2-way races, so the only chance Michele Foxton will have to win the riding will be to take votes from Scott Reid, not an easy task.

She is working to make the case that those voters should switch to her, but she will also need the Conservative vote nationally to dip, quite a lot.

While the national polling for the Conservative Party has dropped from 45% to something like 38-39% in a matter of weeks, it will have to drop even further to make Lanark-Frontenac a competitive riding, since Conservative support in this riding is always well higher than national support for the party.

Still, it is a new wrinkle in an entrenched riding, a glimmer of hope, for Foxton to be the only one who is out there vying for support from center-left voters in Lanark Frontenac.

(Editor’s note – the Frontenac News has asked the Green Party Riding association if Robert Gibson will be available for an interview, over the phone or by email, and if this is possible, we will include that as part of our election coverage – once the NDP have a candidate in place, the riding association has indicated they will be available as well. We will have coverage of both the Scott Reid and Michelle Foxton campaigns.)