 In the end, the Conservatives won the most votes in the 1896 election (48.2% of the votes, in comparison to 41.4% for the Liberals).However, they captured only about half of the seats in English Canada, while Laurier's Liberals won a landslide victory in Quebec, where Tupper's reputation as an ardent imperialist was a major handicap.Tupper's inability to persuade Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau to return to active politics as his Quebec lieutenant was the nail in the coffin for the Conservatives' campaign in Quebec.