After a wild last week in Vancouver politics that saw COPE mayoral candidate Stephanie Allen drop out and William Azaroff stay in the race, Azaroff made another major announcement today.
On Tuesday morning, outside at the Helena Gutteridge Plaza at Vancouver City Hall, Azaroff announced that he is dropping out of the mayoral race, paving the way for Vancouver Greens’ Pete Fry to become the unified mayoral candidate for the three progressive parties: COPE, OneCity, and the Vancouver Greens.
Fry and Allen were in attendance at the press conference, and Azaroff officially endorsed Fry as the unified leader. The three of them, Azaroff, Fry and Allen, stood for cameras, posing for a picture in unity.
Azaroff said he is seeing fear in Vancouver residents.
“I’ve also heard how scared people are of another ABC Ken Sim majority, and I deeply share this,” he said.
“I believe this is the right thing for me to do.”
Last week, Azaroff said that he was surprised by Allen’s unexpected decision. He added that he wanted to have some conversations with Fry before making a decision about his own future just slightly over one month before this year’s civic election.
Many praised Allen’s decision, suggesting she stepped down for the greater good of potentially evicting current Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim from office.
One of the concerns about having so many candidates running from progressive parties was the fear of vote splitting.
Azaroff is hailed as a community housing leader and city builder “who knows how to bring people together to get things done.”
He shared a small thread about his decision on X.
Dear friends,
Today I’m ending my campaign for Mayor of Vancouver.
OneCity and I promised you that only one progressive candidate would be on the ballot this election. I’m keeping that promise.
🧵
— William Azaroff for Mayor (@wazaroff) September 8, 2026
Other notable mayoral candidates who are still in the race include TEAM Vancouver’s Colleen Hardwick, Rebecca Bligh with Vote Vancouver, and Kareem Allam with the Vancouver Liberals.
Allam released his own statement following the announcement from Azaroff.
“William Azaroff has brought a lot to this campaign, and I want to thank him for putting himself forward and for the ideas he has contributed to the debate about Vancouver’s future,” he said.
Allam added, “William and I don’t agree on everything. But there is a lot we do agree on.”
We’re almost at the one-month countdown to this year’s election, which takes place on Oct. 17, and it should be an interesting lead-up.