Action Montréal’s Gilbert Thibodeau pulled off a surprise third-place finish in Montreal’s mayoral race Sunday night, slipping ahead of Transition Montréal’s Craig Sauvé to take 10 per cent of the vote to Sauvé’s 8.5, according to preliminary results.

Throughout most of the campaign, pundits had been predicting Sauvé would probably place a distant third after Ensemble Montréal’s Soraya Martinez Ferrada and Projet Montréal’s Luc Rabouin. Transition Montréal was expected to pull progressive votes away from Projet Montréal, possibly putting itself in a position to wield some power at city hall.

But in the last week of the campaign, several polls suggested a surprise surge in voter intentions in favour of Thibodeau of Action Montréal.

Sauvé credited Thibodeau’s success to the fact that Thib

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