With Conservative candidate Cassidy Villeneuve pulling herself out of the race, the Party finds itself without a flag bearer and an election imminent.
Villeneuve resigned Sunday night via a Facebook post, blaming the difficulty of being a woman in politics and being torpedoed by members of her local association's board.
See: Villeneuve resigns as local Conservative candidate
And: Local federal conservatives poised to dump their candidate if performance doesn't improve
The person Villeneuve defeated for the Conservative nomination is East Ferris Councillor Steve Trahan, who also represented the Conservatives in the last federal election, losing to Liberal Anthony Rota.
See: Conservatives name Steve Trahan as their candidate
When told by BayToday this morning that Villeneuve's resignation was official, Trahan replied, "That's too bad," but was non-committal about re-entering the process.
"I don't know. I haven't talked to anybody, Jeff, to be honest. I mean I'm also running a travel agency business so I am super swamped."
He says the news is too fresh to make any decisions.
"I don't know. Nobody's asked me, nobody's called me...not anybody from Ottawa, or I haven't heard anything from the local board. I have no idea what they're doing."
Trahan's right that there hasn't been enough time to fully digest the news, but it doesn't appear he's closed the door to the idea.
"Well, let me put it this way, we're pretty deep in the rabbit hole here right now. There's going to be an election called within probably a couple of weeks. I love the district. So I don't know what their plans are. If they call me we'll see what happens here. So I can't speak anymore than that right now."
Villeneuve's resignation upends what would have been an all-female race so far with Liberal Pauline Rochefort from East Ferris and NDP candidate Valerie Kennedy from Englehart. The struggle of being a female in politics was one of the reasons Villeneuve gave for withdrawing.
Should Trahan get back into the race, it would add an interesting twist as both he and Rochefort serve on the East Ferris council, he as councillor and she as mayor.
An email to the Conservative Nipissing-Timiskaming Electoral District Association President Gordan Rennie asking for an interview was not immediately returned.