Election results for the federal riding of Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee show Conservative candidate Scott Anderson topping the polls.
As of 11:45 p.m. on Monday, April 28, Anderson had 50.5 per cent of the vote, ahead of Anna Warwick Sears (Liberal), Leah Main (NDP) and Blair Vissher (Green).
Only 238 of the 239 polls were reporting results at that time.
Anderson's 33,365 votes are ahead of Warwick Sears' 28,250, Main's 3,368 and Visscher's 1,087.
It's been an approximately 10 per cent difference between the Conservatives and Liberals all night.
Anderson, a former two-term Vernon councillor, was declaring a victory as of 8:45 p.m. while watching the numbers roll in at the Elks Lodge.
"We won handily it looks like," Anderson said, congratulating Warwick Sears as a worthy competitor. "We just slogged it out and won."
Although not as happy with the federal results of a Liberal win.
"I'm glad it's a minority, we will hold them to account.
"I just want to make sure that my kids someday are able to afford a house."
Anderson said he was expecting a victory when the polls were giving him a strong early lead, but was surprised at how swiftly the final results came in.
"I was actually in a different room and I walked out, and everybody congratulated me," he said of the moment his team was ready to declare victory. "The core campaign were all cheering and clapping, and I guess while I was away they gave me a checkmark."
It's been a polarizing election for many Canadians. Anderson said he's felt that energy here in Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee and was "honoured" to have earned a mandate to represent the riding in Ottawa.
"People tend to either love me or hate me, and I'm glad that it turned out the love transcended the hate," he said.
Liberal Anna Warwick Sears was watching the numbers over at the Vernon Golf and Country Club in her self-proclaimed white 'power suit.'
"Every vote counts, and we are waiting until every vote is counted and then go from there," said Warwick Sears. "The number one goal was to get (Mark) Carney elected and if he won and one of the Central Okanagan ridings turned red then I would be happy and that is going to happen, I think, with Stephen Fuhr."
The blue wave in the numbers was trending north of Vernon, where Vernon's former MP Mel Arnold won the new Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies riding.
Meanwhile a red surge is being seen to the south in ridings such as Similkameen-South Okanagan-West Kootenay where Enderby's Gloria Morgan is running for the Liberals.
Canada-wide there were early projections that Mark Carney's Liberals will win. The Liberals are now projected to form a minority government, with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre having conceded defeat. It's a result that seemed highly unlikely four months ago, when the Conservatives were well above the Liberals in the polls and looked poised to form a majority government.
Asked about what has transpired in those four months that saw the fortunes of the Conservatives and the Liberals flip, Anderson cited the Donald Trump effect.
"I think the Liberals made this about (U.S. president) Trump," he said. "I don't think that the American threat is particularly acute."
Anderson said Trump is getting pushback from Americans on his tariff strategy "and on the harm that he's actually doing to Americans."
He called Trump's 51st state talk and resulting concerns of annexation "a red herring."
"I think he has no intention of doing that," he said. "I'll be the first one to step up and defend Canada, but I just don't think that's in the cards."
Continue following Black Press Media for further election night coverage in the local ridings and federal results.
The Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee riding has a population of 108,606. Of the 92,192 registered electors, more than half (71.67 per cent) voted in the federal election.
The previous federal election in 2021 for North Okanagan-Shuswap voter turnout was 65.2 per cent of the 111,599 eligible voters.
