Elbows up! Liberal candidate Cyndi Mills, second from left, is shown with party supporters at an election night celebration in Pembroke. Although incumbent MP Cheryl Gallant was easily re-elected, the Liberals increased their support from the 2021 election and party faithful feel a renewed interest in the riding.

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Pembroke – Although she lost the election to incumbent Conservative Cheryl Gallant by just under 12,000 votes, Liberal Cyndi Mills of Petawawa said Monday night she felt the party still scored a huge victory in Algonquin-Renfrew-Nipissing.

With 261 out of 262 polls reporting in at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, Mrs. Gallant led with 36,455 votes, followed by Ms. Mills with 24,839 and NDP representative Eileen Jones-Whyte with 2,430. Randy Briand of the United Party of Canada polled 897 votes, Danilo Velasquez of the Green Party earned 599 and independent candidates Seth Malina and Stefan Klietsch finished with 223 and 121, respectively.

“We brought together a lot of people,” Ms. Mills said. “I had such an incredible team.”

Locally, the Liberal Party experienced a resurgence in interest compared to the last seven elections Mrs. Gallant won handily. Ms. Mills recalled having a team of nine people on her campaign team in 2021 compared to more than 100 in this election. Requests for the number of signs increased dramatically, so much so that more had to be ordered during the campaign. Her social media site saw one million hits and volunteers knocked on more than 10,000 doors across the riding.

“The common theme was people didn’t feel heard,” she said. “I’m hoping it will be better for us in the next four years, because our riding deserves that.”

Starting out with six workers on March 22, Ms. Mills said the corps of volunteers grew quickly to 75 and then to over 100.

“And these are people committed to this,” she said. “We are like-minded people, and we are committed to our party’s policies and what our party believes.”

This was her second run against Mrs. Gallant, but there was much more optimism in this campaign compared to 2021 when she was shunned at the door by thousands who were fed up with and tired of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Savouring the victory of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party, Ms. Mills was unsure when asked about her future in politics.

“Do I want to do it again? I guess it depends on the outcome of this election,” she said. “If it’s a minority government, it could be two years. Then what happens?

“We’ll go from there. I’m not going to say anything at this point whether I’m going to run again or not.”

About 50 supporters watched the election results at the Clarion Hotel and as she looked around at the people, Ms. Mills noted most of the people were new supporters.

“They have moved here and I think that is going to be a defining factor in the next election,” she said. “The fact that we did well in polls … and didn’t get blown away, that’s progress. That’s huge for us.

“We will have two years to get strong and hopefully it will be the next election.”

Surprisingly, the two front runners were close in the advance polls with Ms. Mills winning in Deep River, Pembroke and Arnprior and tying in Calabogie and trailing slightly in Renfrew and Arnprior.

Ms. Mills said she enjoyed getting to know the other candidates at the several gatherings held across the riding but was disappointed there was always the missing candidate: Mrs. Gallant.

“We deserve better than that,” she said.

Ms. Mills believes Mr. Carney is the right person to face off against U.S. President Donald Trump in the tariff war.

“I think that is really important for us as Canadians,” she said. “Never 51 (the 51st state).”

Campaign manager Meredith Jamieson said the team exceeded all expectations and echoed Ms. Mills’ sentiments about being winners.

“We all feel like winners and no one is going to be upset because we feel like we did everything we possibly could,” she said. “It was one of the strongest campaigns we’ve had here in so long and we resonated with people.”

Speaking as the results were still coming in, Ms. Jamieson said whatever the results were, that was what the people wanted. But despite the loss, she looked at the result as being a huge victory for the party because of resurgence in interest in the riding.

“You felt this momentous change,” she said. “We knew we had a really steep mountain to climb to make up the difference, but we just kept being bolstered and bolstered by more people. That’s why no one is going to be upset.”

Ms. Jamieson said the feeling was that many people felt it was okay to be a Liberal here again and there was a snowball effect and people didn’t have to feel isolated being a Liberal.

“I think that really made people feel like things are changing,” she said.