Ex-NDP MPP Rosario Marchese: “It didn’t matter what I said.”

“[Voters] were upset with the leader and in their mind we were moving to the right. It didn’t matter what I said.”

—Rosario Marchese, an NDP MPP who represented downtown Toronto for 24 years prior to being defeated in last week’s election by a Liberal upstart, expressing a view common among partisans: the party’s massive losses in Toronto were mostly the fault of Andrea Horwath, its leader. Two other Toronto NDPers (MPPs Jonah Schein and Michael Prue) also lost their seats during the bloodletting.