Ward 2 Municipal Election Results (1960-2018)

Ward 2 Municipal Election Results (1960-2018)

This list is a snapshot of the winners of elections in Hamilton’s Ward 2 from 1960 to 2018. The data below represents the winners of elections held (the years correspond to the year the election was held not the year that the winner necessarily took office). Downtown Sparrow has records back to 1833 when the City of Hamilton was still a town and will be slowly posting those as they’re verified and cross-referenced.

Look below the table for Fun with the Data, Related Resources, an overall Summary, and other useful information. You can use the tools below the table to filter the data and the tools above the table to search the table or to download it in a variety of file formats for your own use.

Summary of elections in Ward 2 from 1960 to 2018

As might be obvious from the table above, the history of Ward 2 municipal elections from 1960 to 2018 was rather repetitive. We don’t mean that there aren’t interesting stories, like when Fred Partridge became City Councillor for a brief stint during this period or when Andrea Horwath became the first woman to win the title of Alderman in Ward 2, but that the period was largely dominated by 2 political voices, Vince Agro and Bill McCulloch. They came on to the political scene at around the same time and ruled the ward together, more or less, for nearly 30 years (1964-1994).

Agro didn’t run in Ward 2 in 1973 but instead ran and won election to the City’s Board of Control. He then ran and lost for Mayor in 1976 and then ran and won again for the Board of Control in 1978. An interesting side note, perhaps, is that Agro assumed the role of interim Mayor from 1976 to 1977 when Victor Copps, who was elected as Mayor from 1973-1977, had a heart attack. He returned to ward politics winning reelection in 1980 as Ward 2 Alderman and kept that seat until 1994. Both Agro and McCulloch were ousted in 1997 by Ron Corsini and Andrea Horwath.

McCulloch didn’t run for the position of Ward 2 Alderman in 1966 but for the Board of Control where he was defeated. Foley, Jones, MacDonald, and McCoy all received more votes that McCulloch (see the City of Hamilton election records for 1966 for the exact vote totals).

During this period in Ward 2, the runaway story of interest came out of the 1997 election when long-time incumbents Agro and McCulloch were ousted by newcomers Andrea Horwath and Ron Corsini. It’s one of the only instances in Hamilton’s recent electoral history where 2 incumbents lost an election to 2 newcomers at the same time in the same election. While Horwath and Corsini were no strangers to the local community, it was a crushing defeat (Horwath – 29%; Corsini – 28%; Agro 17%; McCulloch – 12.60%). The day after the election The Hamilton Spectator reported that, “More than half a century of incumbency went up in smoke last night in Ward 2 in one of the most spectacular double defeats in memory.”

Future Mayor of Hamilton Bob Bratina ran in 2004 when Horwath stepped out of the seat to participate in and eventually win a by-election to become a Member of Provincial Parliament for what was then the riding of Hamilton East. Bratina stepped out of the seat in 2010 to run for Mayor and Jason Farr, along with 19 other candidates vying for the seat, narrowly won by 173 votes (a 2.25% margin). Farr has been Ward 2 City Councillor since 2010, winning reelection in both 2014 (66% of the vote) and 2018 (47% of the vote).

About the data and ways to interpret it

There are a number of ways to break down and analyse this data. Many things change over a 60 year period with respect to how voting happens including the number of years between elections, the number of polls, or an entire voting system (as with the dissolution of the Board of Control or the creation and dissolution of the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth). Keeping this all in mind, we’ve provided 3 possible ways to interpret this data that we think might be useful.

By election interval

Elections have been held at increasing intervals since the first mayor of Hamilton was elected in 1847 and before that when Hamilton was a town from 1833-1846 to elections of what was then called the “Board of Police”. The City started with 1 year terms (until 1953) and is now holding elections every 4 years.

The period from 1960-2018 can be divided by election interval in the following way.

• 1960-1980 (every 2 years)*
• 1982-2003 (every 3 years)
• 2006-2018 (every 4 years)
  
  *1973 was a special election for the creation of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth 

By Mayoral reign

Before 2001, we could group the data into periods of extended leadership for Hamilton’s mayors that more or less correspond to election years. We have grouped everything post-amalgamation into a separate category. We could have used different grouping methods but this seemed to make the most sense and worked out to an average of about 15 years per period.

• 1960-1976 (Lloyd Jackson and Victor Copps)
• 1977-2000 (Vince Agro, Jack MacDonald, Bill Powell, and Robert Morrow)
• 2001-2018 (amalgamation)

By government system

What we now call a Councillor was previously an Alderman under a Board of Control (whose members were called Controllers). That system can be best understood, temporally, in the following way.

• 1960-1978 (Alderman at 2 per ward + a Board of Control)*
• 1980-1997 (Alderman at 2 per ward)
• 2000-2018 (Councillor at 1 per ward)
  
  *The Board of Control was eliminated in January 1980

Source

City of Hamilton election records*
*Records collected in 2019; online records available for 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 through Wikipedia and the City of Hamilton’s website

Related Resources

Map of Downtown Ward Boundaries (1960-2018)
Folder of City of Hamilton election records

Last updated – March 1, 2021