🔎 The race
**Windsor votes for mayor and 10 city councillors on Monday, October 26, 2026.** 54 certified candidates are running across 11 offices, with 184,354 eligible voters — a field that grew well past 2022's turnout (50,078 ballots, 31.6 per cent of 158,604 electors). Half the council table is changing regardless of the result: Ward 4's Mark McKenzie, Ward 5's Ed Sleiman (16 years in Ford City, stepping aside at 83) and Ward 6's Jo-Anne Gignac — the only woman on council — are all retiring, and Ward 1 open seats itself because Fred Francis is running for mayor.
The mayoral race is incumbent Drew Dilkens against Ward 1 councillor Fred Francis, with eight other candidates also certified. Dilkens, mayor since 2014 after two terms as a Ward 1 councillor, announced on the nomination deadline that he is seeking a fourth and final term: “If the people of Windsor give me the privilege of serving for another four years, this will be my final term as mayor. I will not seek another. There’s no next title that I’m chasing and no planned campaign after this one.” He launched at the downtown Paul Martin Building positioning himself as Windsor’s defender in the U.S. trade war, and is running on fiscal discipline (a zero-per-cent 2026 tax increase), a 2,500-job target and downtown revitalization.
Francis, a three-term Ward 1 councillor and younger brother of former mayor Eddie Francis, launched a September platform built on “basics before vanity and you before politics”: affordability measured by residents’ total city bill (taxes plus fees, utilities and debt), ending strong-mayor powers on day one, restoring the Windsor–Detroit tunnel bus, and a downtown plan spanning homelessness, safety, housing and a permanent central library. Their exchanges have been personal — over the Paul Martin building, the Roseland golf course redevelopment, and Francis’s attack on the pandemic-era asset-management levy, which he says “took $41 million more out of the residents’ pockets”.
Kat Pasquach, a political newcomer, artist and CEO of Can Am Urban Native Non-Profit Homes, forced her way into the top tier: the Windsor Essex Chamber of Commerce and CBC Windsor each invited only Dilkens, Francis and her to their debates. She pitches a zero-per-cent property-tax first year, cooperative housing and a “human-centred” approach to homelessness, and told the Chamber debate she would “fight for a better Windsor that uplifts all of our voices.”
The other seven mayoral candidates have far thinner files. Ward 3 veteran Nick Kolasky frames his run as a fiscal correction; Aaron Day is campaigning on Charter-of-Rights accountability; perennial candidates Louis Vaupotic (2022) and Benjamin Danyluk (2022) return, joined by 2022 ward candidates Dylon Graves and Patrick Sutherland, first-time contender Tristan Ty Morencie and business-owner Tara Grayer. In CTV’s election-day candidate Q&A, Dilkens, Danyluk, Graves, Kolasky, Morencie, Pasquach, Sutherland and Vaupotic were all still marked “awaiting a response.”
The council races where seats are open draw the most attention: Ward 1 pits Darcie Renaud (Francis’s 2022 opponent) against seven contenders including retired Windsor police deputy chief Frank Providenti and school-board trustee Linda Qin; Ward 4 includes Chris Holt, Dilkens’s 2022 mayoral runner-up (19,177 votes); Ward 5 re-runs 2022 runner-up Ken Acton for Sleiman’s Ford City seat; Ward 6 has seven candidates for Gignac’s seat; and Ward 10 is a rematch of Jim Morrison’s 138-vote 2022 win over Mark Masanovich. All 10 wards are contested.
⚡ Key issues
Homelessness and the downtown core
Homelessness is one of the top three issues in CBC Windsor’s non-scientific election survey, and Windsor’s 2025 point-in-time count found 794 people experiencing homelessness — more than 120 above 2024. Shelter-health medical director Dr. Jennifer Bondy, honoured by the Ontario College of Family Physicians, warned against single fixes: “anyone that thinks they have the single solution probably doesn’t understand things well.” At the CBC debate, Francis demanded “affordable housing that is permanent and not temporary” (housing-first, a mayor’s roundtable, a downtown safety-and-outreach command unit); Pasquach pushed dignity-first language and services and said homelessness should not be treated as a policing issue; Dilkens cited 12 downtown police hires, a 24/7 H4 shelter hub with $7 million in upgrades, and plans to move the Downtown Mission off Ouellette Avenue and build a new central library at City Hall Square.
Affordability and the “full city bill”
Dilkens made the 2026 budget’s zero-per-cent tax-rate increase his centrepiece: “My commitment today is really simple: to continue to do what I’ve done for the last 12 years to deliver budgets at or below the rate of inflation.” Francis argues property-tax optics hide the real cost — water, user fees, utilities and debt — and has attacked the pandemic-era asset-management-plan levy as having “took $41 million more out of the residents’ pockets”, pledging “a mayor Francis administration will not bring forward any new taxes.” Pasquach pledged a zero-per-cent property-tax first year plus new municipal revenue from advertising, arts and small business. Rounding out the field, Kolasky cites the “library debacle” and “trolley car debacle” as why he entered.
Jobs and the U.S. trade war
Tariffs hang over a border city whose economy rides on auto and cross-border trade. Dilkens unveiled a jobs plan outside the NextStar Energy battery plant (Stellantis/LG, 1,300+ employees, 2,500-target), aiming at another 2,500 jobs in four years with a pipeline he says holds 15 leads worth $1.6 billion, and pitched “Buy Windsor, Buy Canadian” procurement, a tariff-hit-sector CIP and a federal economic-development fund for Windsor as the Gordie Howe International Bridge’s host community. Francis answered with a Tariff Response Action Plan: freezing permitting, licensing and development fees, deferring property taxes for hard-hit businesses and a regional task force — “it is unfortunate and completely unreasonable for the Trump Administration to continue to wage this economic battle against Canada.” Pasquach disputes that the mayor’s job claims are his to make: “I see that as a collaborative effort coming from other levels of government that he is taking ownership for.”
Transit and the Detroit connection
Public transit became a wedge after Dilkens vetoed council’s decision to retain the Windsor–Detroit tunnel bus using strong-mayor powers. Francis pledged: “If elected mayor, we will bring back the tunnel bus,” alongside re-establishing an independent Transit Windsor board, a two-year fare cap, extending the Route 1000 school run and exploring regional service to Leamington and Kingsville. Dilkens paired a “Safety First” policing platform (community policing, a real-time operations centre, expanding Project Green Light) with his counter that the veto decision was the right one. Pasquach has argued for transit and active-transportation connections to the new Gordie Howe International Bridge crossing.
Growth and debt: Sandwich South
The decision to serve 2025’s biggest growth bet split the finalists: council approved a $280.4-million plan to build roads, sewers and infrastructure on the Sandwich South greenfield — with Francis the lone vote against — in an area Dilkens says must be ready within his last term as the site of industrial parks, new homes and the Fancsy Family Hospital. Francis fears the borrowing; at the CBC debate he argued for a phased, pay-as-you-go approach rather than taking on more than $200 million in debt, while insisting “there is no argument” that the lands should develop. Housing tools diverge too: Francis would waive fees on affordable builds, pre-zone downtown and kill parking minimums; Dilkens points to $300 million-plus in secured housing investment and defends public-space spending on parks, Festival Plaza and Sandpoint Beach.
Strong-mayor powers and council’s pay
Governance itself is on the ballot: Francis pledges to end the use of strong-mayor powers on day one and empower councillors, an argument sharpened by the tunnel-bus veto. The sitting council also reshaped the next council’s pay before the race — by 7–3 vote, the mayor’s salary drops $50,000 (to roughly $169k for the winner) while each councillor gains $5,000 from November 15, 2026, a redistribution Dilkens proposed as “net neutral to the levy” after Windsor’s mayor ranked among Ontario’s highest-paid and its councillors among the lowest-paid for comparable cities. A citizen compensation-review committee follows in 2028.
- Every Windsor News Today and CK News Today URL failed HTTP validation (404 to direct curl) and was dropped; their stories are covered via alternate outlets (Chamber debate via Windsor Star, tunnel bus via CBC, 2,500-jobs plan via CBC).
- No verifiable polls of record were found — the two-front-runner framing reflects debate invitations and coverage volume, not polling.
- In CTV's October 15 candidate Q&A, Dilkens, Danyluk, Graves, Kolasky, Morencie, Pasquach, Sutherland and Vaupotic were all still “awaiting a response”, so the seven-candidate tail is thinly documented.
- Minor-party-style details: CTV's “Who is betting on Windsor’s municipal election?” (Sept 15) exists only as a Google-News redirect in the pack and could not be verified, so any third-party-advertiser angle is uncovered here.
- No Windsor-specific GM/EV-transition campaign coverage surfaced; the city's EV story in this race is the Stellantis/LG NextStar battery plant plus the U.S. trade war.
- Ward races beyond the four open seats (2, 7, 8, 9, 10 incumbents) have almost no verifiable coverage; several certified candidates in Wards 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 have no found public statements at all.
- Tristan Ty Morencie: no campaign coverage could be verified at all; his profile rests on the city listing and CTV Q&A status.
| Aaron Day Ran 2022 · Mayor (1.0%) | 🔎 First office bid after a 2022 mayoral run (511 votes). Told CTV he is “running for mayor because our Canadian Charter of Rights were violated”, and puts the drug epidemic and a “Clean Canada Act” framework, housing and Charter accountability at the top of his priorities. |
| Benjamin Danyluk Ran 2022 · Mayor (1.8%) | 🔎 Returning mayoral candidate — he got 875 votes (1.8 per cent) in 2022. No published platform verified; his campaign contact on the city’s candidates page is a “firethemall2026” email, and CTV listed him as awaiting a response to its candidate Q&A. |
| Drew Dilkens Incumbent Elected 2022 · Mayor (52.5%) | 🔎 Mayor since 2014 (ex-Ward 1 councillor, lawyer by training), seeking a fourth and final term after saying “I will not seek another. There’s no next title that I’m chasing.” Campaigns on zero-per-cent budgeting, a 2,500-job target, trade-war defence (“Buy Windsor, Buy Canadian”) and downtown projects including moving the Downtown Mission to the H4 hub and a new central library. Won 26,018 votes (52.5 per cent) in 2022. |
| Dylon Graves Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 6 | 🔎 Ran for Ward 6 in 2022 (107 votes). His campaign site, mayorgraves.com, runs on the tagline “Statistically every election is the most important election” with pages on landlords, housing, garbage, climate and international issues. |
| Fred Francis Serving council — different office Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 1 | 🔎 Ward 1 councillor since 2014, three terms, and brother of former mayor Eddie Francis; former executive director of the Multicultural Council of Windsor-Essex County. His slogan is “basics before vanity and you before politics”: measure affordability by residents’ full city bill, no new taxes, end strong-mayor powers day one, restore the tunnel bus, housing-first on homelessness, and a phased Sandwich South instead of big debt. Voted against the $280.4-million Sandwich South servicing plan as council’s lone dissenter. |
| Kat Pasquach | 🔎 Political newcomer — an artist, downtown small-business owner and CEO of Can Am Urban Native Non-Profit Homes, who describes herself as an Indigenous and Salvadorian woman. Invited alongside the two frontrunners to the Chamber and CBC Windsor debates; pledges a zero-per-cent property-tax first year, public co-operative housing, a dignity-first (“human-centred”) homelessness response, transit and active-transportation links to the Gordie Howe bridge, and finding revenue in advertising, arts and small business. |
| Louis Vaupotic Ran 2022 · Mayor (0.4%) | 🔎 Another returning 2022 mayoral candidate (194 votes) with no verified platform materials; his listed campaign email, detroitwindsorgondola@gmail.com, signals his signature cross-border gondola pitch. |
| Nick Kolasky Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 3 | 🔎 Ran for Ward 3 in 2022 (104 votes). Cites municipal fiscal mismanagement as his motive: “The lack of fiscal responsibility exhibited by [Dilkens] is the primary reason I am running for mayor,” pointing to the “library debacle” and “trolley car debacle.” His campaign site (nickforwindsor.ca) headlines “Windsor Deserves A Mayor Who Is Fiscally Responsible.” |
| Patrick Sutherland Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 4 | 🔎 Ran for Ward 4 in 2022 (114 votes). His vote4patrick.ca site pushes “EVERYBODY VOTES-YOUR VOICE MATTERS-CHILDREN FIRST”, and he was one of six mayoral candidates at the October 15 realtors/home-builders debate. |
| Tara Grayer | 🔎 Business-owner newcomer. In CTV’s candidate Q&A she cites border, street and resident safety, mental health and homelessness as the biggest issues, and frames herself as unaffiliated: “Tara is not endorsed by any corporations and therefore does not have a conflict of interest.” |
| Tristan Ty Morencie | 🔎 First-time candidate with no verifiable campaign coverage found; the city’s candidates page lists phone, email and a YouTube channel, and CTV marked him awaiting a response. One to look up on the city’s mayor candidate list. |
| Brenda Juarez | 🔎 |
| Darcie Renaud Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 1 | 🔎 Francis’s 2022 Ward 1 opponent (2,769 votes), back again in the open Ward 1 race against six other contenders. |
| Frank Providenti | 🔎 Retired Windsor Police Service deputy chief running for the open Ward 1 seat; a lifelong Ward 1 resident. |
| Geoffrey D Guttmann | 🔎 |
| Henry De Cordova | 🔎 |
| Linda Qin | 🔎 Greater Essex County District School board trustee running for the open Ward 1 seat. |
| Shezi Jaffri | 🔎 |
| Anthony Jabbour | 🔎 |
| Cynthia Van Vrouwerff Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 3 | 🔎 |
| Frazier Fathers Incumbent | 🔎 Ward 2 incumbent — seated less than a year after winning the by-election that replaced Fabio Costante — facing three challengers. |
| Nick Markham | 🔎 |
| Rabia Kirma | 🔎 |
| Randal Saccucci | 🔎 |
| Renaldo Agostino Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 3 | 🔎 Ward 3 incumbent, first elected 2022 (1,075 votes in a nine-candidate race); the only returning candidate in a four-person Ward 3 field. |
| Spiro S. Spiliadis | 🔎 Ward 3 challenger who has drawn online attention for posts about homelessness and addiction, including one in which he appeared to take a camera inside the H4 shelter hub. |
| Catherine Gariepy-Schulze | 🔎 |
| Chris Holt Ran 2022 · Mayor (38.7%) | 🔎 Former councillor who gave up his seat to run for mayor in 2022, losing to Dilkens with 19,177 votes (38.7 per cent); now running for the open Ward 4 seat. |
| Mike Burton | 🔎 |
| Rasha Zaid | 🔎 |
| Xsander Moisenko | 🔎 |
| Alessandro Didone Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 5 | 🔎 |
| Farah Ahmed | 🔎 |
| Ken Acton Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 5 | 🔎 Ward 5 candidate who lost to Sleiman in 2022 by 1,949-to-1,252 and is running again in the open Ford City seat. |
| Natasha Elizabeth Feghali | 🔎 |
| Shane Potvin | 🔎 |
| Denis Marier | 🔎 |
| Hiral Munim | 🔎 |
| Jeremy Renaud Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 6 | 🔎 |
| Khassan Saka | 🔎 |
| Nick Jirgens | 🔎 |
| Owen Smith | 🔎 |
| Wendi Nicholson | 🔎 Candidate in the seven-way open Ward 6 race; former president of Windsor-Essex PrideFest. |
| Angelo Marignani Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 7 | 🔎 Ward 7 incumbent (elected 2022 with 2,678 votes), seeking another term against two challengers. |
| Beth Ann Prince | 🔎 Ward 7 challenger with a long charity-sector resume — longtime community-investment lead at Windsor Family Credit Union and former head of the Windsor Regional Hospital Foundation. |
| Victoria Soluade | 🔎 |
| Gary Kaschak Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 8 | 🔎 Ward 8 incumbent seeking a third term with a single opponent, Kevin Racine; the first sitting councillor to enter the 2026 race. |
| Kevin Racine | 🔎 |
| Kieran McKenzie Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 9 | 🔎 Ward 9 incumbent (3,261 votes in 2022) who was running unopposed until a local realtor joined the race late; he voted against July’s council pay redistribution. |
| Soham Patel | 🔎 |
| Adam Ibrahim | 🔎 |
| Jim Morrison Incumbent Elected 2022 · Councillor, Ward 10 | 🔎 Ward 10 incumbent seeking a third term after beating Mark Masanovich by 138 votes in 2022. |
| Mark Masanovich Ran 2022 · Councillor, Ward 10 | 🔎 Ward 10 candidate seeking a rematch, having lost to Jim Morrison by 138 votes in 2022. |
| Wally Chafchak | 🔎 |
🎙 Debates & forums
A busy debate season concentrated on the three invited candidates (Dilkens, Francis, Pasquach) with wider fields in forum formats. The Windsor Essex Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Windsor BIA held the first big debate September 29 at the Chrysler Theatre, moderated by Windsor Star managing editor Craig Pearson before roughly 200 people, with heated exchanges over Roseland, a disputed CAO-firing claim, the tunnel bus and the asset-management levy. CBC Windsor staged a 45-minute October 6 debate among the same three, moderated by Acton Clarkin, on homelessness, cost of living and jobs. A coalition of Black-led groups ran an all-candidate meet-and-greet October 7 at the Caboto Club (all 11 invited, six confirmed). AM800's The Kyle Horner Show hosted a commercial-free mayoral debate on topics from homelessness to Strong Mayor powers. The Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors and Home Builders' Association closed the season October 15 at Caesars Windsor with six candidates — including Dilkens, Francis, Pasquach and Patrick Sutherland — on housing, development and growth (members-only, clips posted online).
🗞 On the radar — local coverage
- Meet the municipal election candidates of Windsor
- Homelessness as a top Windsor election issue: Q&A with family doctor Jennifer Bondy
- Here’s when and where to go for advance voting in Windsor for the 2026 Municipal Election
- Who is betting on Windsor’s municipal election?
- Who’s running in Windsor-Essex this municipal election?
- Windsor residents have options in every ward when they vote for mayor and council in October
- Ward 5’s Ed Sleiman will not seek re-election in Windsor
- The nomination period ends soon. Here's who's running in Windsor