{"id":916372,"date":"2026-10-01T08:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T08:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/916372\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T08:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T08:46:11","slug":"ontario-liberal-leadership-candidate-eric-lombardi-drops-out-endorses-lee-fairclough-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/916372\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Liberal leadership candidate Eric Lombardi drops out, endorses Lee Fairclough \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TORONTO \u2013 There are four people left in the running to lead Ontario\u2019s Liberal party.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Lombardi ended his campaign on Wednesday and endorsed legislature member Lee Fairclough, whom he called substantive and pragmatic.<\/p>\n<p>Lombardi says he knew running as a young, unelected candidate would be a \u201ctough sell,\u201d and that he did not have enough confidence in fundraising to reach the end without taking on debt.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6abdb8fd0e19e4a3e2c9a42djpeg.jpg\" data-pswp- data-pswp-width=\"7379\" data-pswp-height=\"4919\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6abdb8fd0e19e4a3e2c9a42djpeg.jpg\" alt=\"Ontario Liberal Party leadership candidate Eric Lombardi prior to the Ontario Liberal leadership debate in Brampton, Ont, on Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Arlyn McAdorey\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOntario Liberal Party leadership candidate Eric Lombardi prior to the Ontario Liberal leadership debate in Brampton, Ont, on Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Arlyn McAdorey<\/p>\n<p>Former federal cabinet minister Navdeep Bains, legislature member Stephanie Bowman and former political staffer Dylan Marando are the other remaining candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Bonnie Crombie stepped down as leader this year after receiving lukewarm support at the party\u2019s 2025 annual general meeting, following a provincial election in which she failed to win a seat in the legislature.<\/p>\n<p>The next leader is set to be announced Nov. 21.<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2013 There are four people left in the running to lead Ontario\u2019s Liberal party. Eric Lombardi ended&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-916372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}