The voting process to choose the new leader of the Ontario Liberal Party will move to a third round, as Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie nearly secured enough votes to win.

Yasser Naqfi, the Liberal MPP and former regional minister, received the fewest points in the second round of voting, obtaining 3,101 points, and withdrew from the ballot.

Now, his supporters' votes are being tallied and added to the points of the remaining candidates: Crombie and Liberal MPP Nate Erskine-Smith.

Erskine-Smith and Naqfi endorsed each other as secondary choices, although their supporters are not obligated to rank them as such.

The magic number to win is 6,471 points, and after two rounds of counting, Crombie has 6,047 points and Erskine-Smith has 3,792 points.

The Liberals boasted that the leadership contest saw candidates register a record number of members, with more than 100,000 people eligible to vote for the new leader—compared to 44,000 and 38,000 in the previous two leadership campaigns.

However, a portion of those members cast their votes last weekend, with 22,827 people voting. The party notes that this is higher than the 12,988 Ontario Liberals who voted in the 2020 leadership race and more than 19,438 in 2013.

The party also announced last month that it had paid off its $3 million debt from the 2022 election, partly thanks to fundraising during the leadership campaign, which saw the party receive over $1.46 million in the third quarter of 2023.

Party members voted using ranked ballots, and points are awarded on a weighted system.

Ted Hsu, current regional council member and former Liberal MPP, received the fewest points in the first round of voting with 1,300 points and withdrew from the ballot for the second round.

Former Premier Dalton McGuinty spoke at the leadership conference on Saturday and said the four candidates brought excitement and energy to the party and are responsible for its renewal.

He told the crowd, "Our mission that begins today is to stand behind the new leader and give them this support."

Then in the days and years following, our mission basically becomes threefold: to encourage our leader, support our leader, and defend our leader. All of this requires... that we come together and stay together, and it is important to understand—we owe our unity not only to our leader and party but also to our province.

Former Premier Kathleen Wynne echoed the message of unity, saying that the start of the race saw an undercurrent of one camp against another and debate over whether to move further right or center.

She said, "All of that ends today." "It is done. Right? I am a McGuinty Liberal. I am a Del Duca Liberal. I am a Crombie Liberal. I am a Naqfi Liberal. I am a Hsu Liberal. I am an Erskine-Smith Liberal. I am Kathleen Wynne and I am an Ontario Liberal."

None of the remaining candidates hold seats in the provincial legislature, so the eventual winner will have to decide whether to seek a riding to run in or stay out of the legislature and build the party that way.

John Fraser, who served as interim party leader after Wynne’s resignation in 2018 and after Steven Del Duca stepped down in 2022, said he will miss the position but will not go anywhere.

He said in a speech on Saturday, "I am not dead yet." "I hope my legacy is that I was able to bring people together and that together we accomplished things that didn’t seem possible at first."