Fawcett secures second term

After waiting anxiously for poll results to trickle in, Jeff Fawcett was handily re-elected for a second term as Brandon mayor Wednesday evening.

Fawcett received 54.3 per cent of the vote as he defeated former councillor and MLA Len Isleifson, unofficial results show with all 28 polls reporting.

“Thank you for your confidence, your support, and your belief in the future of this city,” Fawcett told voters during his victory speech after 11 p.m.

Fawcett won with 5,752 votes to Isleifson’s 4,845.

“Serving as mayor has been one of the greatest honours of my life. I love Brandon. I love the people who call this city home, and I genuinely love the opportunity to come to work every day on behalf of our community.”

Fawcett hosted his watch party with about 60 supporters at the Riverbank Discovery Centre and watched over reporters’ shoulders as they repeatedly refreshed the city’s results page as votes were slowly reported and posted online.

Fawcett was running for his second term as the city’s mayor and his fifth term on council overall. He previously served as the Assiniboine ward councillor, which is now Ward 1.

The mayor-elect during his speech promised residents that he would always give his “full effort, honesty and commitment” to the job, and make decisions based on what’s best for the city.

“The next four years presents incredible opportunities for our city. We’ll continue to support responsible growth, strengthening our neighbourhoods, investing in infrastructure, supporting local businesses, and ensuring Brandon remains a place where families and future generations can thrive,” he said.

Isleifson, who served as councillor for Riverview — now Ward 9 — between 2010 and 2014 and Brandon East Tory MLA from 2016 to 2023, held a watch party of his own at Browns Socialhouse, joined by more than 30 supporters.

In an interview, Isleifson said the result was “disappointing,” but that he wouldn’t have changed “a single thing” about his campaign.

“We got 40-some per cent of the vote, which is really good. Again … it would have been nicer to have 51 per cent of the vote, but I’m glad it was close,” Isleifson said.

“Some polls we won, some polls we lost, and in the end, it is what it is. I congratulate Jeff on being re-elected and I look forward to what he’s going to do in the next four years.”

The campaign between the two candidates was mellow overall, with both hopefuls calling each other friends and rarely disagreeing with each other’s platforms.

Fawcett’s strategy was to ask voters to look at his past four years, saying that no past mayor has ever reeled in as much provincial and federal funding or support as him.

His showing at the mayoral debate on Oct. 16 included being chided by a Brandon University panellist over his comments assigning responsibility to city staff for closed-door meetings. He also used social media advertisements in the past week to shore up as many votes as possible.

Fawcett also said his opponent ran a “really good campaign,” and that the two similar platforms made it difficult for voters.

Isleifson conducted a safe campaign, relying mostly on face-to-face conversations with voters, without going into much detail about what he would change at city hall. He repeatedly said it’s “time for change” in the Wheat City, and some of that included ramping up arrests downtown to deter drug dealing and use, and focusing on bringing more development to the city’s core.

“I’m pleased with the results and disappointed I didn’t win, but at the same time, happy to see it moving forward with more voter engagement,” he said.

Fawcett Wednesday evening called into question the slow vote-counting process, as final polls weren’t released until around 11:30 p.m., much later than the expected 10 p.m. the city’s election official told council it would be.

“I think there is some disappointment that we had really good machines with high expectations that the results would be coming in quite quickly, and you know they were staggering it so slowly, so it was more frustration,” he said.

Election officials weren’t able to provide voter turnout numbers or how many spoiled ballots were cast by press time.

» alambert@brandonsun.com