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The campaign began with the Liberal Party in the lead. The Harris Tories had delivered large tax cuts, but they had also severely cut spending and had failed to eliminate the province's deficit.
The Tories had the support of the legendary Tory political machine, bolstered by a group of American experts imported from the Republican Party. They targeted the young Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, arguing he was inexperienced ("Dalton McGuinty is not up to the job" was a Tory campaign slogan), and did not have a clear vision.
The Liberal campaign stumbled and began to sink in support quickly. The extensive use of attack ads and wedge issues by the Tories was a new development in Canadian politics, and some commentators worried the election process was becoming Americanized.
The third major party, the NDP under new leader Howard Hampton, spent much the campaign battling the memory of Bob Rae's unpopular government in the early 1990s, and was unable to gain much support.
| Party | Leader | Seats | Popular Vote | Change in Popular Vote |
| Progressive Conservative | Mike Harris | 59 | 45.1% | +0.3% |
| Liberal | Dalton McGuinty | 35 | 39.9% | +8.8% |
| New Democratic | Howard Hampton | 9 | 12.6% | -8.0% |
| Green | Frank de JongFrank de Jong (Born in Luther Township, Ontario in 1955) is a Canadian politician and environmentalist and the current leader of the Green Party of Ontario. He has been a member since 1987 and the leader since 1993. He earned a B. from the University of W | 0 | 0.7% | +0.3% |
| Family CoalitionThe Family Coalition Party is a political party in Ontario, Canada that was founded in 1987 with a social conservative platform. In the 1990 Ontario election, the FCP received over 100,000 votes, but failed to elect anyone to the provincial legislature. | . | 0 | 0.6% | -0.9% |
| Natural LawThe Natural Law Party of Canada was the Canadian branch of the international Natural Law Party, the political arm of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation movement. It never won a seat in Parliament, or came close. Its most famous member was t | . | 0 | 0.4% | - |
| FreedomThe Freedom Party of Ontario is a provincial political party in Ontario, Canada that was founded on 1 January 1984 by Robert Metz and Marc Emery then of London, Ontario as a successor to the Unparty. The Unparty was a political party founded and registere | . | 0 | 0.1% | - |
| LibertarianThe Ontario Libertarian Party is a political party in Ontario, Canada that was founded in 1975 as an offshoot of the Libertarian Party in the USA. It is inspired by the philosophical ideas of such authors and thinkers as Jan Narveson, anarcho-capitalist s | Sam Apelbaum | 0 | 0.1% | -0.1% |
| Communist | Hassan Husseini | 0 | 0.02% | - |
| Confederation of Regions | . | 0 | 0.01% | - |
| Reform | 0 | 0.003% | - | |
| Others | . | 0 | 0.6% | -0.2% |
post-election changes:
Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot (res. Toni Skarica, February 7, 2000), September 7, 2000:
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Preceded by: | Ontario elections |
Followed by: |
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