On Thursday, Erskine-Smith said he’s ruled out provincial ambitions after losing the Scarborough Southwest Liberal nomination. “Having gone through what I went through in Scarborough, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

I’ve somehow missed this. Nate is out of the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) leadership race.

There’s characters are who’s left:

  • Navdeep Bains
  • Rob Cerjanec
  • Lee Fairclough
  • Eric Lombardi
  • Dylan Marando

I don’t see much of a competition for Doug Ford apart from perhaps Lee Fairclough. In my current assessment, this roster is more of the same that failed to win against Ford so far. Should the Ontario NDP decide to push the economic populist message, they (we) may have a better chance than the OLP at knocking Ford to a minority. Nate had a chance to do this, had he become the leader but the OLP leadership showed clear displeasure with that prospect so … here we are.