“3.2 per cent? Yeah!” Frank de Jong, the Yukon’s federal Green Party candidate, cheered as the first results for the territory appeared on the Globe and Mail’s website Monday evening.

The candidate remained in good spirits throughout the night, despite results overwhelmingly not in his favour.

Early data showed Liberal candidate Larry Bagnell leading by a landslide, with the Conservative and NDP candidates in a tight race for a moment and the Greens hovering at about three per cent.

Final results show de Jong receiving 577 votes, or about 2.9 per cent.

That, however, didn’t do much to hinder the calm but jovial mood Green Party supporters displayed at the campaign headquarters on Strickland Street.

About eight people, including de Jong and his campaign manager, had gathered to watch the results earlier that night.

They were sitting, eating pizza and patiently waiting for results, as a small laptop streamed CTV’s live election night program – infrequently interrupted by a supporter shouting the score of the Blue Jays’ playoff game happening at the same time.

All were proud of the campaign the party had run, despite finishing last and the party only capturing one seat nationally.

“You only win if you get the most votes?” de Jong asked rhetorically in an interview with the Star.

“No, you win by participating, by raising issues, by showing people there are new ideas out there that are free for all political parties to adopt,” he said.

De Jong cited the Liberals’ proposed carbon tax – an idea first put forward by the Greens, de Jong said.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau came out in favour of carbon pricing, but noting that a Liberal government would let provinces decide on the exact scheme.

“The Green Party is a success because we have introduced and helped the notion of a carbon tax become policy in Canada,” said de Jong.

Strategic voting played a big part in the Greens’ disappointing results, de Jong acknowledged.

“I’m a Green supporter, but this time, I have to vote strategically to get rid of the Conservatives,” is what de Jong and his team heard throughout their campaign, he said.

“Maybe the Greens took a hit for the team,” said de Jong’s campaign manager, Gerald Haase.

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s the fault of the electoral system,” de Jong said.

“The candidate in 2011 decided not to run again partially based on that,” added Haase.

John Streicker ran under the Green Party banner in four years ago, receiving more than 3,000 votes.

Many blamed him for Conservative Ryan Leef’s slim victory over Bagnell, with only 132 votes separating them.

De Jong, though, hopes that issues of vote splitting and strategic voting will soon be a thing of the past.

He remains hopeful Trudeau will make good on his promise to reform the current electoral system.

Trudeau has pledged to get rid of the current first-past-the-post system, but hasn’t specified what he would replace it with yet.

“That’d be a great improvement for Canada,” said de Jong, noting it would also get rid of artificial majority.

An artificial majority occurs when a party wins a majority of the seats with less than 50 per cent of the popular vote.

Ironically, it’s exactly how Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority last night, taking 184 out of 338 seats but only 39.5 per cent of the popular vote.

Even if the poll predicted low results for the Greens, the party had to have a candidate in the Yukon, Haase said.

“If we didn’t run a candidate, the conversation in Canada would be much weaker because of it,” he said.

A Yukon poll released three weeks ago had put de Jong at four per cent of the votes.

“In a sense, it’s been a victory just running a candidate, as strongly as we did with limited resources.”

The Greens spent about $30,000, according to Haase, claiming Leef had a budget of $200,000 for the election.

Pointing to CTV’s graphics on television only showing the Liberal, Conservative, and NDP candidates for each riding, Haase criticized what he saw as a marginalization of the party.

“In many newscasts, we see them talking about the three main parties,” he said, adding that in the Yukon, de Jong received a fair share of coverage.

Shortly before 9 p.m., as half the Yukon polling stations had reported in, Green supporters offered de Jong a thank-you card.

He hugged each one of them, smiling.

They made their way to the MacBride Museum to congratulate Bagnell, who by then had secured more than 50 per cent of the territory’s vote.

The two shook hands, as Liberal supporters applauded.

“(De Jong) had the best lines in some of the debates,” Bagnell told the crowd of Liberal supporters.

“He really added some colour to the campaign.”

Today, de Jong is driving back to his home in Faro, where he is scheduled to resume his job as a teacher on Wednesday.

“Faro is a wonderful community, and I love teaching,” he said.

He will teach mathematics, phys-ed, wood shop and music to students in Grades 1-12.

–With files from Aimee O’Connor.