Who is Keanin Loomis, Hamilton’s new American-born mayor?

Four years after narrowly losing Hamilton’s mayoral election, Keanin Loomis completed his political comeback Monday night.

“Hamilton loves a comeback. It’s a comeback city,” the mayor-elect told CP24 as he celebrated an apparent decisive win over opponents Rob Cooper and incumbent Andrea Horwath.

“It’s poised for a comeback as well, because tonight is the night that we change and we’re headed in a different direction.”

While results are still unofficial, Loomis, 51, came awaiy with nearly 42 per cent of the vote. Cooper, a Hamilton councillor and businessman, finished second (32 per cent) and Horwath, the former Ontario NDP leader who edged Loomis by 1,663 votes in the 2022 municipal election, finished a distant third (14.5 per cent).

Here’s what to know about Loomis, the American-born business leader who became prominent in Steeltown’s economic development community before pursuing public office.

Loomis was born in Oswego, New York, on the shores of Lake Ontario, in 1974. He was raised in poverty by his mother after his father, whose name he carries, left when he was too young to remember, according to the Hamilton Spectator.

At 12, his mother married a Canadian man with whom she’d been in a long-distance relationship and relocated the family to London, Ont.

He studied political science at the nearby University of Waterloo, where he met his future wife, Hamilton native Trish Loomis, mother to their three children. He then obtained a law degree from the College of William & Mary in Virginia and practised private law in Washington D.C. for almost a decade — getting married and having two kids during this time.

“I didn’t want to give the pound of flesh required to climb in D.C.,” he told the Spectator, noting U.S. politics had lost its sheen for him.

“It’s when I realized that I think I’m actually Canadian.”

When the 2008 economic crisis resulted in a contract buyout from his law firm, he and the family moved back to Hamilton, briefly living in his in-law’s basement.

At the time, he was intent to use Hamilton as a launching point for wider efforts in neighbouring Toronto, according to a pre-election interview with The Public Record, but he “ended up falling in love with this community because of the potential.”

In 2010, Loomis became the founding CEO of the not-for-profit business accelerator Innovation Factory, leaving in 2013 to become president and CEO of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce.

Upon his departure to run for mayor in 2022, Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) president & CEO Rocco Rossi call Loomis “a brilliant, values-driven, tireless leader” who created a “remarkable legacy” locally, provincially and nationally.

After his failed bid for the mayoralty, he became a vice-president of the OCC.

In June 2024, Loomis was appointed president and CEO of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction, a position he left for this election.

The future for Hamilton’s youngest residents, including his own, was another driving factor in deciding to run again.

“I’m doing this not for power, a paycheque or a pension. I’m doing this for my kids. I’m doing this for the other kids across this great community,” he told the Record.

Loomis is the second American-born mayor in Hamilton’s history, according to the Hamilton Independent.

The first was New Hampshire-born John Fisher, who moved to the city in 1835 and opened what is believed to be its first foundry. He was the city’s fourth mayor, serving a single year in 1850.

Loomis wasn’t the only American-born mayor elected in an Ontario city on Monday.

Marianne Meed Ward won her third consecutive term as the mayor of Burlington according to unofficial results. The 60-year-old former Miss Canada and journalist was born to a Canadian father and American mother in Greeley, Colorado, spent her earliest years in California, where her father was a park ranger at famed Yosemite, and moved to Kingston, Ont. before Kindergarten.

Oakville incumbent mayor Rob Burton, who grew up bouncing around the U.S. with his military family before relocating to Canada, was defeated Monday night, finishing third according to unofficial results.

Another currently sitting mayor with U.S. roots is Halifax’s Andy Fillmore, who was born in Bloomington, Indiana, to Atlantic Canadian parents studying abroad, his profile on the city website reads. The family returned to  Canada when he was four, but Fillmore studied and worked in Boston before returning to Canada and eventually becoming an MP in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.

Another notable modern-day Canadian mayor born in the U.S. was Toronto’s David Miller, a native of San Francisco who came to Canada with his mother in 1967.

Loomis told the Spectator he doesn’t think the city “is dangerous” but doesn’t disregard people’s apprehension about the downtown core.

The first pillar in the SMART plan he campaigned on is safety and features three main components.

Safe Public Spaces Hamilton would establish city-wide safety standards, set response times for hazards and publicly track the city’s performance. Loomis also vows to revive a partnership with the Hamilton Anchor Institution Leadership (HAIL) to better coordinate resources. The third tranche is a downtown safety and economic plan that works for all stakeholders — residents, business owners and visitors.

He also promises to sit on the Hamilton Police Services Board, a seat Horwath resigned last September due to schedule conflicts, The Bay Observer reported.

“The Mayor gets the opportunity to sit on that board if they so choose, and I will be doing so for my entire term. That is how you exercise leadership,” Loomis told the Record earlier.

Statistics Canada reported earlier this year that Hamilton’s crime severity index — a statistical measure of the number of police-reported crimes relative to the population — was down seven per cent last year compared to 2024, below both the national and provincial averages.

At the same time, Hamilton Police Service’s 2025 annual report shows a 10 per cent jump in violent crimes over the year prior, a 39.4 per cent increase in weapons violations and drug offences up 196 per cent.

Another 2025 police report showed a 12.2 per cent year-over-year increase in the number of violent crimes involving youth aged 12 to 17, led by assault with a weapon, up 38.1 per cent.

Along those lines, weapon possession offences by youth were up 256.2 percent over 2024, police reported.

Hamilton also experienced a 12 per cent increase in hate/bias incidents in 2025, the majority of which were racially motivated.

In addition to safety, Loomis’s SMART plan is also focused on mobility, accountability, responsive government and taxpayer respect.

On the latter, Loomis has promised to determine “a number that can be absorbed by taxpayers” using “zero-based budgeting” — where total revenue minus total expenses equals zero each year.

“We are far too often going to the taxpayers and businesses in this community every single time we need more revenue. We have to recognize that it’s far too much, that there’s an affordability crisis out there, and we need to keep tax increases as low as possible,” he told the Record.

“Folks do want lower taxes, but they also don’t want cuts to their services, so we have to figure out how we’re going to do it.”

Loomis’s economic strategy for Hamilton is to attract investment, create jobs and expand the city’s commercial and industrial tax base to reduce pressure on residential taxpayers.

His platform called for preventative road maintenance, better coordination of construction projects to reduce disruptions and improved transit connections. He also wants to modernize housing approvals and reduce red tape to make home construction easier.

On housing, Loomis has pledged to work toward delivering up to 5,000 affordable housing units in this four-year term.

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