Conservative incumbent wins fourth straight election in Kamloops

Photo: Contributed

Throwing a star candidate at the Conservative party was not enough to get the Liberals a victory in the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding.

Conservative incumbent Cathy McLeod was well on her way to a convincing victory over Liberal candidate Terry Lake, the former Kamloops mayor and ex-provincial minister who was tasked with taking down the Conservatives.

It did not work, as McLeod won the riding for the fourth consecutive election.

McLeod had more than 42 per cent of the vote with 155 of 283 polls reporting, compared to Lake, who garnered 28.7 per cent of the vote.

McLeod earned only 35 per cent of the vote in 2015, beating New Democrat Bill Sundu, but she picked up a whopping 52 per cent of the popular vote in the riding in 2011.

The 62-year-old McLeod moved to Kamloops in 1999, where she worked as a nurse and a health care administrator.