Jama was fourth in Hamilton Centre, behind the NDP, Liberal, and even the PC Party candidate. Pictured: Former Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama. Photo Credit: Sarah Jama/X.
Radical left-wing candidates Sarah Jama, who ran in Hamilton Centre as an Independent after being kicked out of the Ontario NDP, and Kojo Damptey, an activist who ran in Hamilton Mountain and regularly tweeted in support of “abolishing the police,” both lost significantly in Thursday’s provincial election.
Jama was fourth in Hamilton Centre, behind the NDP, Liberal, and even the PC Party candidate.
She saw her share of the vote drop from 54.22 per cent when she ran under the NDP banner in a 2023 by-election down to just 14.9 per cent in what was a loss of 39.32 percentage points.
Due to Jama splitting the vote, the NDP won with their smallest vote share in the riding’s modern history at 38.4 per cent.
Andrea Horwath and the NDP won Hamilton Centre with 65.25 per cent of the vote in 2018 and 57.26 per cent of the vote in 2022.
Similar to Jama, Damptey, who was running in a riding that has been an NDP stronghold since 1999, came in third place behind the PC Party’s Monica Ciriello and the Liberal Party’s Dawn Danko.
In 2022, the NDP and Monique Taylor won the riding with 15,250 votes and 44.81 per cent of the vote.
In 2018, Taylor won with 24,406 votes and 54.58 per cent support.
Damptey received less than half the number of votes (10,037) and only 26 per cent support.
That means that NDP support under Damptey dropped 18.79 percentage points from 2022 and 28.58 points compared to 2018.
Although Jama lost in Hamilton Centre, the riding was still won by the Ontario NDP’s Robin Lennox with 38.4 per cent of the vote.
Lennox appears to have similar beliefs as Jama, regularly retweeting left-wing Councillor and Jama-supporter Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2 – Downtown Hamilton) and criticism of Israel’s military actions against Hamas.
Lennox is a family physician who serves on the City of Hamilton’s Public Health Subcommittee and as the Medical Director for the YWCA’s “Safer Use Space.”
The “Safer Use Space” is a supervised injection site that also provides needles and drug-smoking supplies.
After her election loss, Jama tweeted on X, “While the election results didn’t go our way, this campaign has been about challenging the limits of what’s possible electorally.”
“Looking ahead, I’m excited to continue organizing beyond traditional systems and exploring new ways to create change, grounded in community power,” she continued.
Kroetsch, who strongly supported Jama’s election campaign alongside Councillor Nrinder Nann (Ward 3 – East Hamilton) tweeted that with Premier Doug Ford winning another majority government there are “dark times” ahead.
Kroetsch added, “We’re going to have to find a way forward, together, in the wake of a third majority Ford government and do what we can to resist the harm coming our way.”
Damptey, who was joined at his election headquarters by federal Hamilton Centre NDP MP Matthew Green, shared a similar message with his supporters.
“Our work is just beginning. We’re going to have to build a coalition like we’ve never ever built before,” said Damptey.
The Ontario NDP also saw their vote share drop in the three other Hamilton ridings.
Zaigham Butt, the NDP candidate for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek saw his share of the vote fall from 27.34 per cent in 2022 to 17.6 per cent.
Butt was supported by the far-left Hamilton and District Labour Council, who also endorsed Jama in Hamilton Centre.
For context, Paul Miller and the NDP won the riding with 51.15 per cent of the vote in 2018.
Sandy Shaw and the NDP also saw a decrease of 1.6 percentage points in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, winning with 38.8 per cent of the vote.
In Flamborough-Glanbrook, NDP candidate Lilly Noble received only 12.7 per cent of the vote – down 10 points from 2022.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
