Marianne Meed Ward will lead Burlington for another four years. Voters re-elected her mayor on Monday, Oct. 26, by 7,955 votes over Lisa Kearns. In six of the seven races for mayor and ward councillor, the winner took less than half the vote.
More people showed up than last time. Official results posted by the City of Burlington show 56,863 of the city's 160,089 eligible voters cast a ballot, a turnout of 35.5%, up 7.9 points from 2022. Online voting, open from Oct. 14 to 25, was popular: it accounted for 26,444 votes, close to half the total.
Kearns finished a clear second in the mayor's race, and Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan came third.
It is Meed Ward's third straight win, but with her smallest share of the vote yet. In 2018 she unseated a two-term incumbent, and in 2022 she won in a landslide against a thin field where the runner-up took 13%. This time she also drew 5,110 fewer votes than four years ago.
City Hall will look different. Four new councillors are set to join the six-member council, which sets local taxes, approves the city budget and decides on development. Only one ward winner, Olivia Duke in Ward 4, cleared half the vote.
Three wards were won by less than three percentage points. The tightest was Ward 2, where Sean Campbell edged Gary Carr by 105 votes. In Ward 5, Alex Don finished 188 votes ahead of Paul Sharman. In Ward 3, Mark Carr, a former city councillor, returns to council in a different ward after several years away, winning by 263 votes over Tony Brecknock.
School trustees, who represent parents and residents on the board that runs local public schools, were elected too. In the Halton District School Board race for Wards 3 and 6, Xin Yi Zhang won 11,248 votes, more than four of every five cast.
The new term runs from Nov. 15, 2026, to Nov. 14, 2030. The mayor and council will be sworn in at their first meeting on Monday, Nov. 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre, 440 Locust St.
