Ford cruises to victory in Toronto, Waterloo decides General Ripper was right

It seems that those polls suggesting that Smitherman was within striking range of Ford were inaccurate:

Rob Ford, the city councillor who campaigned against waste and business-as-usual at City Hall, is the new mayor of Toronto.

With 90 per cent of polls reporting, Mr. Ford took almost 49 per cent of the vote, compared to 34 per cent for former Ontario deputy premier George Smitherman and 11 per cent for third-place finisher Joe Pantalone, the current deputy mayor.

From the Globe. How much damage he can do depends on who gets elected to council; my guess is that he won't have enough allies to accomplish most of what he'd like to, but I don't know. Those more familiar with the makeup of council are encouraged to comment.

Edited to add: OK, this looks bad.

Meanwhile, in Waterloo Region, all three cities have reelected their mayors, and Waterloo itself seems to have voted strongly against any formal talks with Kitchener about amalgamation in a referendum. In a separate referendum, they narrowly voted to discontinue the fluoridation of the city's drinking water.

Also notable is that Brenda Halloran is the first Waterloo mayor to be reelected in 16 years. It strikes me that Winnipeg also has a pattern that could use breaking, namely the fact that we haven't thrown out an incumbent mayor since 1956. In two days we'll find out if the pattern will hold for another four...