My sincere congratulations to Mr. Alward and the Conservative campaign who exceeded that with 42 seats (pending at least one recount).
The Tories won all but 3 of the 15 ridings to watch, but also won 7 ridings that I had thought to be Liberal victories. Here is a map with the Tory wins that I didn't forsee highlighted. Of these, considering the big sweep, none are a major surprise. I'll single a few out for comment.
- Grand Falls-Drummond-Saint-André (+6)
- Campbellton-Restigouche Centre (+20) - I really missed the ball here as this race wasn't even close to close
- Miramichi Bay-Neguac (+5)
- Quispamsis (+16) - this is a bell-weather and I started to get buyers remorse this afternoon when I realized that, but a 16 point margin is quite something, especially when an opinion poll had given Schryer a 9 point victory just a few weeks ago
- Saint John East (+5) - this result was almost the exact same as 1999 - PC winning with less than 40% due to high NDP vote, I didn't expect the NDP to be able to score anywhere near the 24% they got here and the 28% they got in Saint John Harbour
- Saint John Harbour (9 votes) - this is the first ever PC victory in this riding and with a final result of 30.7-30.5-27.6, this was quite a nail-biter all night
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2 comments:
"Saint John Harbour (9 votes) - this is the first ever PC victory in this riding and with a final result of 30.7-30.5-27.6, this was quite a nail-biter all night."
Give your head a shake. Nancy Teed won this riding for the Tories twice, back when it was called Saint John South.
As for the overall result, past experience shows that the Tories usually outperform any poll results (call it "shy Tory syndrome"). The NDP have always been strong in Harbour and East, (2006 was the exception) which lets Tories win on the splits. I have no idea why you thought it would be close. Although the final results haven't been published, it was quite predictable that the NB Liberal vote wouldn't show up. In 2008, 40,000 NB Grit voters didn't come to the polls for Stephane Dion. It's no surprise that the same crowd wouldn't show up for Shawn Graham.
You are right and wrong.
You are right in that Saint John South did go Tory prior to 1987.
But this was a new district created in 1995 out of parts of Saint John South and the old Saint John Harbour. The old Saint John Harbour voted Liberal. This new seat had voted only NDP and Liberal until now.
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