Olivia Chow’s path to victory was unsurprisingly paved with every ward in the downtown core along with a large swath of Scarborough.

Unofficial results released Monday night indicate that Chow received more than 37 per cent of the vote, defeating runner-up Ana Bailão by nearly five percentage points.

In the densely populated downtown wards of Spadina-Fort York, Toronto Centre, University-Rosedale, Parkdale-High Park, and Toronto Danforth, Chow received about double the number votes as Bailão.

Chow, who will become Toronto’s fifth mayor since amalgamation, was also ahead by about 6,000 votes in Bailão’s home ward of Davenport, which was reporting results in all but one polling location as of 10 p.m.

With the exception of Scarborough-Rouge Park, Chow managed to come out on top in five of the six Scarborough wards. She was particularly dominate in Scarborough North, where she received about 47 per cent of the vote compared to Bailão’s 23 per cent.

With all but one poll reporting in Willowdale, Chow was narrowly ahead with a lead of less than 50 votes.

Chow’s biggest loss came in Etobicoke Centre, where she received just over 8,000 votes compared to Bailão, who pulled in close to 17,000.

There were a number of extremely close races across the city, including Humber River-Black Creek, where Chow lost by just two votes. In Don Valley East, Bailão squeaked out a win with a lead of less than 20 votes.

While no other candidates got into double-digit territory, Mark Saunders took about 8.6 per cent of the vote on Monday night, followed by Anthony Furey at 4.96 per cent, and Josh Matlow at 4.91 per cent.

From the start of the campaign, Chow was consistently positioned as the candidate to beat and Bailão’s strong showing on Monday night came as a surprise to some who watched the mayoral race closely.

Bailão saw a surge of support in pre-election polls following a last-minute endorsement from former mayor John Tory, who triggered the byelection with his resignation back February.

CTV's political analyst Scott Reid said Chow should now use the support she received in Scarborough to her advantage when it comes to dealing with the other levels of government. 

"Find an issue, create momentum, build a coalition around that council table, draw Scarborough in. Go to Ottawa, go to the province, go to Queen's Park with an ask," he said. "I would try to leverage that."