With most of the results in, it appears the Liberals have held Scarborough-Guildwood and Ottawa South, with the NDP winning Windsor-Tecumseh and London West, and Doug Holyday squeaking it out in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

On the surface, this is a disastrous result for Kathleen Wynne, losing three seats and seeing her party’s vote fall by an average of over 15 points. The Liberals finished a distant third in Windsor and London, two ridings they won handily in 2011.

But byelections are all about expectations, and this is roughly what people expected from the Liberals. So it’s Tim Hudak who, despite scoring a long sought-after breakthrough into fortress Toronto, finds himself being declared the “loser” of the night by many. Go figure.

While I would never dispute that Tim Hudak is a loser, he didn’t receive much help in the expectations game from Forum research, which had the PCs leading in 3 ridings – and up by 16 points in Ottawa South. Consider this another reminder we really didn’t need to put much stock in superficial robopolls answered by 1 in 100 numbers called, in byelections where under a third of of public votes.