Provincial Politics

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Wow, I'm seeing 21 seats exactly?

That would be very interesting... they PC's will be heavily targeting those two independents to take on the role of speaker.

[Architype]

They were close in popular vote, likely the mostly rural districts the Torys won have less population than the seats the Liberals won. It seems a lack of confidence in the Quebec Labrador MOU agreement was what put the PCs over the top.

The Tories won the popular vote with 44.37 per cent of votes cast, compared with the 43.43 per cent for the Liberals.
...
The Tory leader also criticized Hogan’s decision to endorse a proposed multibillion-dollar energy deal with Quebec, saying the draft agreement wasn’t good enough.
...
"I will demand a true, independent review that will share its conclusions with the public," Wakeham told supporters on Tuesday. "I will use that review to fix this deal or demand a better one. Given the generational stakes, I will not sign any deal that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians do not approve in a referendum."

https://www.bowenislandundercurrent.com/...nt-in-newfoundland-and-labrador-11342908

[Marty_Mcfly]

I've been meaning to come back here for a post-election discussion for quite some time well. But really all I can say is that I, or most people, did not see that PC victory coming. I did not really feel an overwhelming desire for change in the air, and truthfully by living in St. John's maybe I was shielded enough from the struggles of people living in the rural parts of the island that I couldn't see what was about to happen.

The campaign signs were there though, if you looked closely enough. Hogan spent the majority of his last week of the campaign in St. John's, playing defense on the districts they were most likely to hold, instead of focusing on rural districts which they could flip. Wakeham on the other hand was very aggressive in the last week, focusing on red rural districts, which ultimately did pay off for them. Clearly the internal numbers for both parties were showing the result we saw on election night, even if external polls which were released to the public showed a comfortable Liberal lead.

I suspect in the end the Liberals campaigning on only the MOU was their big mistake. Even when it was first announced you could tell people didn't really care that much about it. There was no excitement in the air, people weren't talking about it out in public, it sort of just existed. On top of that, there certainly is some hesitancy among people regarding the deal; both the former Churchill Falls deal, as well as the debacle of Muskrat Falls, have rightfully made people weary of any new major deals or projects being announced by the government. The Liberals insisting it was a good deal and trying to rush it and make it a campaign focal point while people had no idea what the deal even entailed likely did not help, and being told "it's good trust us bro" by the Liberals likely did no favours to them at all.

And even if the deal is good in the end, it's not top of mind for most people. Cost of living concerns, housing, healthcare, and crime are much more pressing issues. One party campaigned on those issues, while the other went around talking about the MOU. While additional money from Churchill Falls would be nice, it doesn't directly address the issues which are at top of mind of those voters. So it shouldn't be no surprise that the party which campaigned on the common day concerns of people was the party that won the election.

I sort of figured we'd see a little bit of that transition on election night, where the PCs would make some gains in rural NL on the back of everything mentioned above. I also figured it'd lay the groundwork for a path towards a 2029 victory. But it ended up manifesting itself all at once. I really shouldn't be surprised when everything swings in one direction, it's more common for that to happen than not. For example, the USA swing states all tend to swing towards the same party, like we saw for the Republicans in the 2016 and 2024 elections.

The PCs have a tall task ahead of them. This province is so close to falling apart, as it has been for such a long time now. I don't think it particularly matters who is in office, as I think a lot of our issues go well beyond who's in control. I would like to see a serious attempt at both reducing spending and tackling the defecit.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

MARTY'S 2025 CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION PREDICTION.

St. John’s East

LPC: 56.7% (+11.6)
CPC: 25.9% (+7.8)
NDP: 16.2% (-18.6)
GRN: 1.0% (+1.0)
Other: 0.2% (+0.2)

Liberal hold
Confidence: HIGH

Analysis: Back in December, I was tacking this as an extremely close 3-way race, with all 3 major parties clustered together within a few points of one another. Imagine how exciting that would be right now, a riding with 3 possible winners and no indication of who would come out on top? How times have changed.

The collapse of the NDP will be felt here the most. A district which they should be in contention for resulting in a 3rd place finish. I’m not sure why people insist that Mary Shortall is a strong candidate; I hear it from people all the time but I can’t quite grasp why they think so. In 2021 Shortall herself was unable to hold on to a large chunk of the previous Jack Harris voter pool, who walked right on over to the Liberal camp. Sure, Shortall is a visible face, but being a visible face doesn’t translate to results. It’s a microcosm of the NDP as a whole; we were told for multiple elections now that Jagmeet Singh was the right leader for the party, only for their electoral success to erode under his leadership, and now we’re at the point of no return where the NDP are on the cusp of being wiped off the electoral map.

Dave Brazil for the CPC is a shockingly good candidate for a mostly urban seat. He’ll capture enough of the suburban voters to see a nice bump in vote share compared to 2021, but it won’t be nearly enough to sniff victory.

Joanne Thompson is not a great MP. She merely just exists, but she is the beneficiary of the NDP’s collapse. In another timeline where the NDP didn’t collapse and were running a better candidate, the NDP would have a shot at taking this district from her. But alas, our actual timeline is much less interesting; an easy victory for Joanne Thompson.

Bold Prediction for St. John’s East: This one will take longer to cook as we’ll need to wait for the official poll results to be released in about 9 months time, but my bold prediction is that the CPC will win more ballot boxes than the NDP.

With the poll-by-poll results for the federal election having been released last week, we can revisit this bold prediction.

The Conservatives won 18 polls in St. John's East. The NDP somehow didn't win a single poll, even in neighbourhoods they have historically done very well in. A complete nightmare result for the NDP.

But one more correct bold prediction

FYI poll-by-poll results for this election, and prior elections, can be found at https://www.newfoundlandvotes.com/mapped-federal-election-history.html if anyone would like to take a look at how their area voted.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Just launched the Town-level election results database. You can now see how each town in Newfoundland & Labrador voted in every federal election & by-election since 1997, and how they voted in almost every provincial election & by-election since 1972.

https://www.newfoundlandvotes.com/town-database.html

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

Just launched the Town-level election results database. You can now see how each town in Newfoundland & Labrador voted in every federal election & by-election since 1997, and how they voted in almost every provincial election & by-election since 1972.

https://www.newfoundlandvotes.com/town-database.html

Good job, they should give you a shoutout on the numbers podcast!