After a lengthy voting process that went into the early morning, Erin O’Toole won the race to lead the Conservative Party of Canada.

Peter MacKay was thought to be the next potential leader but did not get anywhere near the first ballot support he had expected. He and O’Toole were within about two percentage points but O’Toole received more support in the following two ballot runs.

Upwards of 175,000 party members cast their votes. The delay in counting was marred by a mechanical issue which tore up about 3-4000 ballots which then had to be restored and verified taking an additional six hours.

Tim Powers, a political commentator and Managing Director of Abacus Data says O’Toole isn’t as well known as MacKay which is a bit of a double-edged sword; O’Toole will first have to introduce himself to Canadians and hope another party doesn’t do that for him. He goes on to say O’Toole will also have to spend time building a campaign organization and a team to get better known to run against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

Powers says MacKay probably became victim to O’Toole’s message to Conservative voters that he is the true blue Conservative choice, that along with some stumbles by MacKay out of the gate may have painted him as a bit risky.