Fortunately, my knowledge of "my age, name and sexual orientation" is confirmed in that none of the ridings I equated with that area went the other way.
The map below shows the ridings I got right in pastels and the ridings I got wrong (with winning parties colour shown) in deep red and blue.
I messed up on 7 ridings. Of these 3 were in my "ridings to watch" column in which I did not have a huge degree of confidence and I think that that is ok.
They were:
From the "ridings to watch"...
Centre-Péninsule-Saint-Saveur - This riding was back and forth and around the block again several times through out my prediction and I actually had it down as Liberal in my first draft at a final prediction, however I didn't want to give the Liberals more than 30 seats as I thought that that was too optomistic so I moved it across the line. I was right about the 30 seats being about where the Liberals would end up, but should have moved Saint John Portland instead. Congrats M. Landry.
Saint John Portland - I was pretty confident that the Liberals would take this, Lord is strongly disliked in Saint John, this was the only Saint John proper riding that hadn't gone Liberal in 2003 and the NDP vote was likely to slip. However, Holder managed to pull it off and I tip my hat to him.
Fredericton-Silverwood - Whoops. I put this, hesitantly, into the NDP column but they weren't even close. Dennis Atchison got 11.6% and I didn't think it was possible under any circumstances for him to get less than 20%. Talk about misreading the riding. I did at some point some where say a win for Rick Miles was possible, but I didn't see it. I apologize to Mr. Miles and his team for underestimating them.
From "In my mind I feel confident, but I am somehow uneasy"...
Southwest Miramichi - I had this one in the Tory column from almost day one, but I always had it in the "leans PC" column until the very end. Something told me Rick Brewer would do ok here as he has been a very attentive and mindful constituency MLA and some of the folks in this riding would perhaps be turned off by the "elite" status accorded to Brent Taylor. Though Brent is by no means an elitist, tags like "former MLA", "sure bet for cabinet", "star candidate", etc could have given him that aura. Congrats Mr. Brewer!
From "I am confident"...
Dieppe Centre-Lewisville - A number of commentors advised me that Cy LeBlanc was in better shape here than I thought and evidently they were right. He won, albeit it narrowly with a 59 vote margin, but he still won. Congrats M. LeBlanc.
Charlotte-Campobello - I had this briefly in the PC column but became convinced as the campaign went on that the Liberals would pick it up. I was wrong. Congrats Mr. Huntjens.
From "I am 99% sure of the outcome"...
Woodstock - This was, to me, one of the biggest shockers last night. The rage in Woodstock over the hospital issue was intense. The rural areas in the riding are all to the south of the Town of Woodstock and many of them go to Fredericton for hospital needs and thus were obviously not as upset about this and were expected to make it a close race by supporting David Alward. I was surprised to see that the margin for the Liberals in the Town of Woodstock was not only not enough to put the Liberals over the top but also not enough to even make the race close. Mr. Alward won here with an impressive 13% margin! Wow! Congratulations sir!
Now that my prediction review is over, here are my other thoughts.
Very disappointing night for the NDP. For Dennis Atchison to get less than 10% and the leader to get only 12% in her riding blows my mind. Their popular vote is their lowest since 1974 - their second election and just after a major internal battle with "The Waffle". With no seat, that showing and few leadership prospects, it may be difficult for the third party to make a recovery. I wish them the best of luck.
Tanker's margin of defeat was quite a shock to me. A lot of people said he would hang on, though I was confident that that wasn't the case, I never would have guessed that he'd lose by 19.5%!
Only two cabinet ministers (Fowlie and Green) were defeated. This means that Lord/whomever succeeds him will have a very strong opposition team at least in terms of corporate memory and understanding of what files are where in departments.
Watch for my predictions on cabinet making in the next day or so.
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12 comments:
Good job on the coverage. I was also shock that Woodstock would back a Tory government. I also figured we [Liberals] would have picked up Rothesay. And so close on Dieppe-Center. My own predictions were for 31 to 24 win...
I wonder if there will be a recount in Dieppe Centre- Lewisville. They were sloppy in their reporting so the may have been sloppy in their counting. We are only talking 59 votes here.
59 votes doesn't sound like a lot and there may be a rount but it is 1% of the vote, hard to imagine that many ballots being wrong.
The PC's may have won another seat if former CoR MLA Colby Fraser hadn't run as an independent in Fundy-River Valley.
nuna - Fraser was never a CoR MLA just a three time candidate and their leader. He has run in every election since 1987 and Milt won over him in 1995, 1999 and 2003 so it is hard to pin the blame on Colby.
Agreed that 59 is still a bunch to make up. Did Brenda Fowlie not have her 2003 lead reduced from a similar number though? I was just struck by the CBC report that they stopped counting and went home last night. It is this unusual event that made me open to the idea that a recount would be sought here. The other two seats have wider margins to make up.
peter kincaid... Fowlie's margin actually increased from 16 to 18 in the recount.
peter kincaid... Fowlie's margin actually increased from 16 to 18 in the recount.
I think you did a great job on your predictions. Woodstock also is a surprise to me. Is the Dieppe (Cy/Bruno) riding complete let? I thought there were some mail-in ballots yet to be counted.
According to the Elections NB site the results are all in now.. they must have counted them late last night or early this morning. LeBlanc's margin widened from 58 to 59.
I enjoyed reading your comments throughout the election. As a political junkie living outside NB it was great having your site.
Look forward to your Cabinet picks
Thank you very much :)
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