The Liberals finally have their candidate in the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh for next month’s federal election.
Irek Kusmierczyk won the nomination, defeating Linda McCurdy and Jeewan Gill in Tuesday’s nomination meeting.
“This has been a hard fought nomination campaign," said Kusmierczyk, who is the ward 7 councillor in the City of Windsor. "We left everything on the table and now we're literally going to turn this around and start campaigning."
756 ballots were cast with four spoiled ballots.
Kusmierczyk tells CTV News he is excited to join the campaign and deliver his message.
"Having a seat at the table of a governing party makes all the difference in the world," says Kusmierczyk.
Kusmierczyk said he will also forfeit his pay as a city councillor during the campaign.
He becomes the sixth candidate in the riding in Windsor-Tecumseh.
Also running are NDP incumbent Cheryl Hardcastle, Conservative Leo Demarce, Giovanni Abati of the Green Party, Dan Burr of the People's Party of Canada and Laura Chesnik of the Marxist-Leninist Party.
University of Windsor political science professor Lydia Miljan tells CTV News Kusmierczyk and the Liberals have their work cut out for them.
"I'm not sure why it took them so long it's not as if we didn't know the election was coming," says Miljan. "The Liberals are going to have to hit the ground running and start knocking on doors and trying to convince voters they should go back to the fold."
Demarce is confident of the Conservatives support in the riding.
"We have a strong base that's growing and growing all the time and people recognize that," says Demarce.
Hardcastle, the NDP incumbent, welcomes Kusmierczyk into the race, saying she has defeated a city councillor before and is ready to do it again.
"I'm familiar with those dynamics," says Hardcastle. "I'm just happy to get out on the door steps and talk to everybody about the things that they really care about."
The federal election is Oct. 21.
