The town hall in Sudbury is half full on a Tuesday night. Marit Stiles is at the front, working through a question about hospital wait times, and you can see the math of her situation written on the empty chairs. Since September 20, 2025, when she pulled 68% at her NDP leadership review (enough to keep her job, not enough to quiet the doubts), Stiles has been doing this across the province: town halls, riding association meetings, union events, trying to reach people who feel disengaged from politics entirely. The review came seven months after a snap election in which the NDP won 27 seats and formed the Official Opposition for the third consecutive time (a party first) but saw its vote share slip below 20%.
February’s Verdict
The February 2025 snap election was called 18 months early, with the Ford government arguing it needed a renewed mandate to confront US tariffs. PCs won 80 of 124 seats. NDP held 27. Liberals doubled to 14. Greens won two. Turnout: about 45%.
44th Parliament Seat Distribution (124 total)
Survivable, but nothing to celebrate.
Geography is the party’s core problem. Of the 27 seats, 11 are in Toronto, five in Hamilton and the surrounding area, six in Northern Ontario. That leaves just five scattered across the rest of the province, a region that contains roughly 80 ridings.
Five out of eighty. In cities like London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Windsor, and the 905 suburbs (where the NDP needs to grow), the party finished third in most ridings behind the PCs and Liberals. The suburban and small-city ridings that actually decide Ontario elections remain mostly out of reach.
Following the Money
The fundraising picture is bleak. The NDP raised roughly $5.2 million in the 2025 election cycle. The PCs pulled in over $12 million. The Liberals, a party that held eight seats going in, still raised about $8 million.
That’s the Liberals outraising the Official Opposition by nearly $3 million. Per-vote subsidies help, but those are pegged to the last election’s vote share, and sub-20% means less public money going forward. Most NDP donations are small, averaging well below the $1,650 annual limit: loyal donors, but the sheer volume cannot match PC fundraising dinners or Liberal donor networks. Stiles told party members at the September convention the NDP needs to double its donor count before the next election.
Unions (CUPE, Unifor, OPSEU, the Ontario Federation of Labour) remain the NDP’s most reliable institutional support: volunteers, phone banks, endorsements.
But some labour leaders have started asking, quietly, whether their resources would do more good on issue-based campaigns than on a party that keeps finishing second or third. That’s not a conversation the NDP wants happening out loud.
Cracks Inside
Sixty-eight percent sounds fine until you look at what winning Ontario leaders pull. Stiles is secure, not commanding. And then, in January 2026, the party lost Scarborough Southwest MPP Doly Begum, who resigned her seat to run for the federal Liberals in a by-election. Begum had served as deputy leader.
When your own deputy leader jumps to the federal Liberals, it says something about how ambitious people inside the party see its ceiling. Her departure left a hole in caucus and invited speculation about who else might be eyeing the exits.
Picking Fights
Stiles has compensated by swinging hard at Queen’s Park. In November 2025, she was ejected from the Legislative Assembly during question period after calling the Ford government “corrupt” while criticizing the Skills Development Fund scandal. In January 2026, she addressed the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference, calling for a “new deal for municipalities” that would stop the province from downloading costs. In February, the NDP launched its “Save OSAP” campaign against the government’s restructuring of student grants into loans. Each picks a specific fight. Municipalities have complained for years about the province offloading infrastructure and social service costs; the “new deal” pitch speaks directly to that resentment. The OSAP campaign targets younger voters and families watching post-secondary costs climb. On housing, Stiles has proposed rent control for all units regardless of construction date (a direct shot at the Ford government’s exemption for buildings constructed after November 2018). Good for the base. Whether it plays in Barrie is another question.
Ghost of Bob Rae
Party veterans love invoking Bob Rae’s surprise 1990 majority as proof it can happen. Sure. But those conditions were specific: a deeply unpopular Liberal government under David Peterson, a recession just beginning, and a three-way vote split that let the NDP win seats with pluralities well below 50%. Rae won 74 seats with 37.6% of the vote.
2026 looks nothing like 1990.
Ford’s PCs hold a genuine majority coalition spanning rural Ontario, the 905 suburbs, and parts of the 416. The Liberals, not the NDP, are the PCs’ closest challenger in most competitive ridings. And voter turnout in 2025 was roughly 45%, meaning more than half of eligible Ontarians stayed home. The NDP’s challenge is not just to win converts from other parties but to mobilize people who have opted out of the process entirely (this matters more than it sounds).
Three Years to Figure It Out
The problem is bigger than Stiles. The PCs occupy the centre-right with a coalition large enough to win comfortable majorities, the Liberals will hold a leadership election in November 2026, and the NDP needs voters who are fed up with Ford but do not default to the Liberals. Stiles told CBC News she has spent more time since the leadership review reaching out beyond party faithful, trying to connect with Ontarians who do not see themselves in any party.
Nobody will know if it’s working until the next general election, expected in 2029. Three years is a long time in politics. But geographic concentration, fundraising shortfalls, and a crowded centre-left do not fix themselves. A 68% vote of confidence buys time. It does not buy answers.
Sources and verification: The 68% leadership review result on September 20, 2025 is from NDP convention reporting by CBC News. The 2025 snap election results (PC 80, NDP 27, LIB 14, GRN 2) are from Elections Ontario. Doly Begum’s January 2026 resignation to run federally is from CBC News. Stiles’s ejection from the legislature in November 2025 is from Hansard and media reports. The ROMA 2026 address is from the Ontario NDP press release. The “Save OSAP” campaign is from NDP published materials. Stiles’s comments on post-review outreach are from her CBC News interview. NDP fundraising figures are from Elections Ontario financial filings. The geographic breakdown of NDP seats is from Elections Ontario riding-level results. Bob Rae’s 1990 results (74 seats, 37.6% vote share) are from Ontario electoral records. Union affiliations and labour support dynamics are from published media reporting and Ontario Federation of Labour statements. Rent control policy details are from the Ontario NDP’s published housing platform.
See how NDP MPPs vote on every division at Ontario Pulse.