Updated: Liberal Lisa Hepfner leading, but close Hamilton Mountain race now comes down to mail-in ballots

Liberal Lisa Hepfner will have to wait until mail-in ballots are counted to see whether she was successful in wresting Hamilton Mountain away from the NDP for the first time since 2006.

Those results won't be available until later Tuesday - at the earliest.

Hepfner, a well-known TV journalist, was leading NDP candidate and former Welland MP Malcolm Allen for the open riding by 866 votes Tuesday morning, with 151 of 155 polls reporting. But a final tally will have to wait on at least 2,165 local mail-in ballots that Elections Canada only started counting today.

In some cases, that count will be done in one day - but in others, over a few days," said agency spokesperson Nathalie de Montigny, who explained mail-in ballots must be verified in a two-step process to rule out tampering and also ensure voters did not also cast a ballot in person on Election Day.

If Hepfner's lead holds, Hamilton Mountain will become the only city riding to change political colours in 2021. It will also mean the minority Liberal government will hold three-of-five Hamilton ridings.

The retirement of popular MP Scott Duvall, a former city councillor and union president, spurred a battle for the open seat and helped spur three visits each to the city by NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Both leading candidates fended off accusations of being parachuted" into the riding of 104,877 people, with Allen only recently moving to the Mountain from a Niagara home where he served as MP from 2008 to 2015. Hepfner lives in Oakville but has worked as a journalist in Hamilton for two decades.

Tory candidate Al Miles also earned a solid 25 per cent of the vote, but the race ultimately came down to just a few percentage points separating the NDP and Liberals - as it has in each federal race since 2015.

Allen and Hepfner were the only candidates to attend the riding's televised Cable 14 debate, with both sparring over competing plans to improve housing affordability and transit in a riding where a majority of dwellings are single-family homes and nearly 36,000 people drive to work.

Other candidates contesting the riding included Al Miles (Conservative) David Urquhart (Green) Chelsey Taylor (PPC) and Jim Enos (Christian Heritage).

Matthew Van Dongen is a Hamilton-based reporter covering transportation for The Spectator. Reach him via email: mvandongen@thespec.com