Scott Gillingham Wins Second Term as Winnipeg Mayor With 39.8 Per Cent

Scott Gillingham has won a second term as mayor of Winnipeg. Voters in the Manitoba capital returned the 58-year-old incumbent in the municipal election held on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, choosing him from a field of 12 mayoral candidates.

CBC News projected that Gillingham would win a second term. In the CBC early results snapshot, with 168 of 245 polls reporting at 9:03 p.m., Kevin Klein stood in second place and software developer Noah Redden in third. Gillingham defeated Klein, Redden, Mike Vogiatzakis and eight other candidates. With all polls reporting just before 10 p.m. local time, Gillingham had 39.8 per cent of the ballots cast.

A smaller share than past mayors

The Winnipeg Free Press described that level of support as relatively weak for an incumbent. Winnipeg's three previous mayors, Brian Bowman, Sam Katz and Glen Murray, each won second or third mandates with more than 50 per cent of the vote. Gillingham's own first win was also narrow. He took the mayor's office in 2022, beating Glen Murray by 4,391 votes, and CTV News put his share that year at approximately 27 per cent.

A changed council

Nine of Winnipeg's 15 council wards will be represented by new faces, and five councillors did not seek re-election. In CBC's early results reporting, two incumbents lost their seats: Devi Sharma lost Old Kildonan to Greg McFarlane, and Shawn Dobson lost St. James to Kelly Ryback.

Klein concedes a hard campaign

In his concession speech, runner-up Kevin Klein said: "I thought it was probably the most dirty campaign I've seen in a Canadian election, and it's unfortunate that's what it has to come to, but it is what it is." CityNews reported Klein's view that the campaign got dirty very fast, and said he was saddened by it.

The platform voters backed

Gillingham campaigned on public safety, promising more police officers to keep up with population growth, continuation of the planned Community Crisis Response Service for non-emergency calls, including mental health and addictions, and work with Ottawa on bail legislation changes for repeat offenders.

He pledged to continue installing full protective shields for transit drivers and to increase the number of community safety officers focused on fare enforcement. He promised more support for homeless people downtown and continued work with the provincial government on a program that has already moved more than 250 people from encampments into homes.

His costed platform, released just days before the vote, would hold property tax increases at 3.5 per cent in 2027 and keep any hike over the following three years close to the inflation rate. Last year he raised property taxes by 5.95 per cent, above the 3.5 per cent promised in the previous campaign, a step he said was taken in part to meet the demands of more people.

Turnout and background

Turnout in Winnipeg was notably higher than in 2022, and a record number of residents used advance voting. Turnout in 2022 was 37.5 per cent, the lowest since 2006. No turnout percentage for 2026 was reported on election night.

Gillingham was first elected to Winnipeg city council for St. James in 2014 and served two terms. He sat on mayor Brian Bowman's executive policy committee from 2016 to 2022, chairing the finance committee and the police board. Before entering council, he was a Pentecostal pastor for more than two decades.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported the result under the headline "Thank you, Winnipeg," saying Gillingham told the city its best days are still to come after winning a second straight term.