There are 25 per cent fewer candidates for Richmond Hill Council than in 2022, but the decline in competition is far from evenly spread across the city.
The deadline has passed. The names are in. And Richmond Hill voters now know who will be on their municipal election ballots this fall.
At first glance, the 2026 election looks competitive enough. Every council seat has more candidates than positions available, and all nine members of the current council are seeking another term.
But look a little closer and a different picture emerges.
Richmond Hill has considerably fewer council candidates than it did four years ago, and the amount of choice available to voters varies dramatically depending on where they live.
There are currently 33 candidates seeking nine positions on Richmond Hill Council:
| Office | Candidates |
|---|---|
| Mayor | 3 |
| Regional and Local Councillor, 2 elected | 3 |
| Ward 1 | 4 |
| Ward 2 | 5 |
| Ward 3 | 2 |
| Ward 4 | 5 |
| Ward 5 | 8 |
| Ward 6 | 3 |
| Total | 33 |
The City says nominations closed at 2 p.m. on August 21. As of August 23, it still describes the published candidate list as unofficial until the City Clerk certifies the nomination forms.
Four years ago, there were 44 candidates for the same nine council positions.
That means the number of people seeking Richmond Hill Council seats has fallen by exactly 25 per cent since 2022.
And that decline is not happening equally everywhere.
Two candidates here, eight candidates there
Perhaps the most striking comparison is between Wards 3 and 5.
A Ward 3 voter will choose between just two names: incumbent Castro Liu and challenger Juni Yeung.
A Ward 5 voter will have eight names to consider.
The contrast becomes even more interesting when we look backward.
Ward 3 was also a two-person race in 2022. Liu defeated Yeung with 84.92 per cent of the vote, compared with 15.08 per cent for Yeung. Four years earlier, in 2018, Liu did not face a challenger at all and was elected by acclamation.
Ward 5 has followed a very different path.
Ten candidates ran there in 2022, the largest field of any Richmond Hill ward. Incumbent Karen Cilevitz won with just 23.34 per cent of the vote. This year, eight candidates are running.
There is an obvious possible explanation.
Potential candidates do not make their decisions in a vacuum. Running for office takes money, time, volunteers and months of effort. If an incumbent won the previous election with almost 85 per cent of the vote, a prospective challenger may reasonably conclude that the seat will be extremely difficult to win.
If the previous winner received only 23 per cent, the calculation can look very different.
In a crowded race, a candidate does not necessarily need anything close to majority support to win. That can make a seat appear attainable to several different challengers at the same time.
In other words, competitive elections can attract competition, while apparently safe seats can discourage it.
That should not be treated as the only explanation. Ward 6 provides a useful counterexample. Seven candidates ran there in 2022 and Michael Shiu won with only 27.66 per cent of the vote, yet only three candidates are running in Ward 6 this year.
Candidate recruitment, community networks, personal circumstances and simple political timing can all affect who decides to run.
Still, the Ward 3 and Ward 5 contrast is difficult to miss.
A surprisingly quiet mayoral race
The mayoral ballot also looks unusual for a city of Richmond Hill’s size.
Mayor David West has two challengers, Domenic Bardari and Holo Devnani.
But these are not entirely new names.
All three ran for mayor in the 2022 general election. West received 70.18 per cent of the vote, Bardari 2.86 per cent and Devnani 1.42 per cent. The significant challenger that year was former councillor Carmine Perrelli, who received 25.54 per cent and is not running this time.
Put another way, West’s two current challengers received a combined 4.28 per cent of the vote in 2022.
That does not determine what will happen in 2026. Candidates can build campaigns, political circumstances can change and voters can change their minds.
But based on the last election alone, this year’s mayoral contest begins without an obvious challenger who has previously demonstrated a large electoral base.
There is another curious detail.
A Richmond Hill resident told Strong Richmond Hill that they heard Devnani say his reason for running was to prevent West from being acclaimed.
Strong Richmond Hill has not independently confirmed that comment with Devnani, so it should be treated as a second-hand account rather than a direct quotation.
If accurate, however, it would underline just how close Richmond Hill may have come to having no contested mayoral election at all before Bardari filed his nomination on the final day, August 21.
Three people competing for two regional seats
The Regional and Local Councillor race may receive less attention than the mayoral contest, but mathematically it is one of the least competitive races on the ballot.
Only three candidates are seeking the two available seats: incumbents Godwin Chan and Joe DiPaola, and challenger Marco Coletta.
That means two of the three will be elected.
In 2022, five candidates competed for those two positions. Chan received 38.61 per cent, DiPaola 27.88 per cent and Coletta 11.58 per cent.
This time, Richmond Hill voters city-wide will have only one more candidate than the number of seats they are filling.
That is particularly notable because Richmond Hill’s regional councillors do double duty, representing residents both at Richmond Hill Council and at York Regional Council.
An election full of familiar names
There is another pattern in the candidate list.
This is not simply an election in which all the incumbents decided to run again. Many of their previous challengers are back too.
The three mayoral candidates all appeared on the 2022 mayoral ballot.
Ward 3 is an exact Liu-Yeung rematch.
Scott Thompson, Tom Muench and Sigmund Lee are again running in Ward 2.
Simon Cui and Rose Weinberg are again competing in Ward 4.
Karen Cilevitz, Richard Rupp, Yuliya Benedziktavich and Vera Murano all ran in Ward 5 four years ago and are back on the ballot.
Chan, DiPaola and Coletta are all returning candidates in the regional race.
So while there are new names, much of the 2026 election also looks like another round of contests that began four years ago.
Less choice does not necessarily mean less competition
Candidate count alone cannot tell us whether an election is healthy.
Eight weak campaigns do not automatically offer voters more meaningful choice than two strong candidates with clearly different ideas.
Nor does having fewer candidates mean an incumbent cannot be defeated.
The campaigns still have two months to make their cases, and Richmond Hill voters will ultimately decide how competitive these races really are.
But candidate numbers do tell us something about who believes elected office is worth pursuing, where challengers believe an incumbent can be beaten, and how many alternatives voters are being offered.
On that measure, Richmond Hill enters the 2026 election with noticeably less choice than it had four years ago.
And depending on which side of the city you live on, your ballot may look very different from your neighbour’s.
A Ward 3 resident gets two choices for local councillor.
A Ward 5 resident gets eight.
That may be the most interesting story hidden in Richmond Hill’s final candidate list.