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Sources, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations, had hoped she would clear the 75 per cent threshold.

Still, after huddling with New Democratic MPPs, Stiles announced she would stay on as leader and promised sweeping changes to avoid another electoral loss to Premier Doug Ford’s three-term Progressive Conservatives.

“We cannot run the same election campaign that we ran last time. And I said it and I meant it — that we need to make change in this party if we’re going to be able to defeat Doug Ford in the next election and we will do that,” said a visibly disappointed Stiles.

The sobering result contrasted with her soaring speech earlier in the day when she maintained the Official Opposition is getting ready to form government in 2029.

“Look, while Doug Ford and his friends are busy doing photo ops ... and the Ontario Liberals are going back to the drawing board for the third time ... New Democrats are rolling up our sleeves and we are getting to work,” Stiles told delegates Saturday.

Crombie announced her resignation last Sunday after Liberals rendered their verdict on her campaign in February’s provincial election. She will remain at the helm until a new Grit leader is elected, likely next year.

Ford’s Tories won 80 seats with 43 per cent of the vote on Feb. 27, compared with 14 for the Liberals and 30 per cent and 27 ridings and 18.5 per cent for the NDP. The Greens won two seats with 4.8 per cent and there’s one Independent.

Only 931,796 Ontarians voted for the New Democrats in February compared with 2.15 million for the PCs, 1.5 million for the Grits and 242,822 for the Greens.

While the NDP’s voter efficiency saved incumbents, its lacklustre overall tally hurts the party financially because of a reduction in per-vote public subsidies.

“We know we can’t run the same campaign and expect different results so we will learn from that last election. We will build beyond the solid core, yes, we held,” Stiles said in a spirited 26-minute speech to hundreds of NDP members.

“We will hold Doug Ford to account and we will offer the people of Ontario a better government.”

Stiles, celebrating her 56th birthday Saturday, said the New Democrats’ priorities are “jobs, homes, public health care, lowering everyday costs (and) putting our kids first.”

Reminding delegates of Ontario’s sputtering economy and stubbornly high unemployment rate of almost eight per cent, she noted “800,000 Ontarians are out of work right now.”

“We have a premier who is a jobs disaster,” she said, deriding Ford’s penchant for media “stunts” like theatrically disposing of a bottle of Crown Royal rye whiskey earlier this month to protest parent company Diageo’s plan to close a plant here.

“In Amherstburg, a laid-off worker watched the premier pour out a bottle of Crown Royal for the TV cameras — and then watched him leave without lifting a finger to protect the actual jobs at the bottling plant,” the NDP leader said.

“And in North Bay, a young woman just hit send on her 200th job application, desperate for some opportunity and finding none. What did Doug Ford have to say to her, and the thousands like her facing record unemployment? He said ‘look harder.’ Look harder? The nerve of that, thanks a lot, Doug,” Stiles continued.

“This is a premier whose corruption scandals are more well-known than his accomplishments, right? The guy who was ready to carve up the Greenbelt and sell it off to his wealthy friends until we stopped him.”

That’s a reference to Ford’s decision to cancel his controversial plan to open up 7,400 acres of environmentally sensitive land to housing developing, which is currently the subject of an RCMP criminal investigation.

Stiles, who was acclaimed leader in February 2023, was greeted warmly after her speech as she worked the convention hall to the tune of Carly Rae Jepsen’s anthemic “Cut to the Feeling.”

But polls suggest the New Democrats have their work cut out for them to topple Ford’s Tories in four years time.

In the most recent Abacus Data tracking survey, Stiles’ NDP plunged to a new low of just 12 per cent.

That compared to Ford’s Tories at an all-time high of 53 per cent support while the Liberals, under departing leader Crombie, were at 27 per cent and Mike Schreiner’s Greens were at five per cent.

Abacus surveyed 1,037 Ontarians Aug. 15-19 using online panels based on the Lucid exchange platform. While opt-in polls cannot be assigned a margin of error, for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have one of plus or minus 3.04 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.