Davenport (electoral District) - History

History

The federal electoral district was created in 1933 from parts of Parkdale and Toronto Northwest ridings.

The federal riding of Davenport has been one of the most consistently Liberal ridings in Canada over the last century; in fact, the last non-Liberal to be elected for the constituency was Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament Douglas Morton in 1958. Since then, Liberals Walter Gordon and Charles Caccia (who himself held the seat for nearly 40 years) managed to win the seat by increasing margins, finally culminating in a 17 500-vote majority in 1993. Meanwhile, the opposition parties in the constituency were shifting, and the New Democratic Party candidate has beaten the Progressive Conservative or Conservative candidate in every election since 1979.

After the election of Paul Martin to the Liberal leadership in late 2003, Charles Caccia lost the nomination for the seat to local city councillor Mario Silva, who had signed up sufficient new members to oust the incumbent; this was an unpopular situation and was deeply resented by many in the local Liberal party, which, combined with redistricting, led to an overnight tripling of the NDP vote in the 2004 federal election.

In 2011, Andrew Cash of the New Democratic Party won the seat by a significant margin, becoming the first non-Liberal in over 50 years to represent the riding.

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