On Monday, voters in the Ontario riding of Durham will be going to the polls for a federal byelection to fill the seat vacated by former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. It’ll be the culmination of what has been months of preparing for this contest. But what goes into running a byelection campaign?

On this episode of The Writ Podcast, I’m joined by two seasoned campaigners to answer that.

Fred DeLorey is a former national campaign manager for the Conservative Party and was also director of political operations under Stephen Harper. He’s now host of the iPolitics podcast, On Background with Fred DeLorey, and partner at NorthStar Public Affairs.

Melissa Cotton spent over 20 years as a volunteer and staffer for the Liberal Party and provincially. She has managed or worked on multiple local election and by-election campaigns and served in several central campaign war rooms.

THE NUMBERS: On this week’s episode of The Numbers podcast, available for Patreon members here, Philippe and I broke down the latest federal, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada polls and set our over/under lines for the Durham byelection.

In addition to listening to this episode of The Writ Podcast in your inbox, at TheWrit.ca or on podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, you can also watch this episode on YouTube.

Join me and Philippe J. Fournier on Monday night at 8:30 PM Eastern for our livestream of the Durham byelection results on YouTube.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thewrit.ca/subscribe

SARAH SILVERMAN Went to the Bedford Mall Cinemas