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What happened in ward 18?

Despite coming second in a heated race to Ana Bailão in ward 18, the mood at second place candidate Kevin Beaulieu’s Gladstone Hotel party is surprisingly upbeat.

Beaulieu arrives to a crowd fueled by beer and munchies, who have been subjected to more bad than good news while watching screens displaying the latest citywide election results.

After congratulating his opponent he lets supporters know he plans to hold Bailão to her promise to work for a better community.

Beaulieu pledges to stay and fight for public services and sounds like he’s preparing for a rematch.

“We’re going to keep building that campaign over the next few years.” Smiling he continues, “I want to thank you in advance for your help.”

The crowd cheers, but I’m still thinking about the upcoming fight for services like transit, parks and libraries, considering the loss of several effective public advocates.

Lanky Councillor Adam Giambrone is easy to spot in the crowd. Although less specific on the future, he is interested to play a part in things.

I cycle over to catch the tail end of Bailão’s victory speech at the spatious Casa dos Açores club. The sumptuous spread beats the carmel pop-corn on offer at Beaulieu’s, but it’s more of a formal affair with bright hot lights. Bailão thanks her supporters and praises Canada for creating the opportunities that led to her success.

While it wasn’t mentioned in either campaign speech, Bailão’s campaign tricks have people tweeting, and election day is no exception.

I arrived to volunteer at the poll at Alexander Muir Gladstone School and was fooled by an official looking Portuguese translator dressed in black with bold white letters – ‘falo português’.

Next ‘citizen translators’ arrive. I complain and get a persistent elderly translator kicked out 3 times, but he comes right back. With line-ups of 100 people or more, overwhelmed managers fail to stop him from “helping people vote.”

Later at Bailão’s victory bash, ‘We Are the Champions’ blares, and I find the same elderly man, sitting down wearing a campaign button. He chuckles as he recognizes me, rubs in the victory and adds, “they kicked me out a couple of times.”

Could be an interesting four years.

On election day, I volunteered as an outside election scrutineer for the Kevin Beaulieu campaign.

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