Update: The results are in and this prediction was wrong, Liberal Fred Hutton ended up with a fairly decisive victory with unofficial results showing him with nearly one half of the vote. I look forward to learning more about what factors contributed to his win. A wise former U.S. House Speaker once said that “all politics is local” and I suspect this factored into his win as he had deep family roots in the riding (among other factors). The logo rebranding the provincial Liberals did evidently worked. I predict as a hobby races in three countries, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. and between Newfoundland and Labrador and Northern Ireland, these have to be the hardest races to predict. I am certainly appreciative however of the challenges of psephology (election analysis and predictions) and am glad for these “outliers” in making this hobby truly interesting and rewarding. Always something new to learn … thanks to all who happened by my website or who took the time to interact with me on X (Twitter).
By-election called due to resignation of former interim PC Leader David Brazil due to health reasons.
Conception Bay East – Bell Island is seen as a reliably PC seat in the St. John’s exurban area, having voted blue since 2003 … prior to that was more of a Liberal-leaning bellwether.
The constituency has taken on its present form since the 1985 election, consisting of Bell Island in Conception Bay, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s on the mainland east and a portion of Paradise. For a number of elections Bell Island was its own constituency, and in other years it was grouped with Harbour Main at the head of Conception Bay.
Federally the riding has been a part of the St. John’s East … in surveying polling station results since 1997, Bell Island has trended strong PC/Conservative except in strong NDP years, whereas the Portugal Cove – St. Philips section has seen all three main federal parties showing various levels of support depending on the overall strength.
All three main parties are running candidates in the election along with one independent candidate. Among the main riding issues include improved local ferry service, health care and ambulance services, the winter closure of a local waste facility, road conditions and overall cost of living. It is worth noting that the byelection was originally scheduled for Monday, January 29th but was postponed one day due to the weather.
Tina Neary is the PC candidate and most likely to succeed David Brazil. A town councilor for Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, she is also a non-profit Executive Director. The campaign has alluded to issues of general affordability on their campaign website, while others have tried to tie the provincial Liberal candidate to their unpopular federal counterparts and the carbon tax.
There was some question that the independent candidate, Darryl Harding, a colleague of Neary’s on town council, might split some of the vote as he self-identified as an ‘independent progressive conservative’ although Neary said she was not concerned about a possible vote split. Harding was suspended from council last March due to allegations of sexual harassment and breaching the town’s code of conduct. Prior to the byelection, he was formerly the local PC district association president who accused PC Leader Tony Wakeham of hand-picking Neary as the byelection candidate and wrote a negative letter questioning Wakeham’s leadership.
Liberal Fred Hutton was a prominent journalist and adviser to Premier Andrew Furey. The Liberals have notably dropped their logo on campaign signs and replaced those with the Premier’s name, an acknowledgement perhaps of the Liberals’ national unpopularity. In the campaign he has addressed health care, ferry service and dumping. One of Hutton’s more memorable quotes in the campaign was related to road issues. “When I am your MHA, I will be able to pick up the phone and call the transportation minister and say, ‘These roads … need to be done in this year’s budget,’ and they will be done.”
NDP Candidate and disability rights activist Kim Churchill is probably best known for her fight in court to have the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District provide services for her son in American Sign Language, a case she won last spring. Her campaign has focused on ferry service, health care, housing, and affordability.
The bottom line – Premier Furey’s government is relatively popular, as is his Premiership, compared to his federal cousins, although not overwhelmingly so. Wakeham, the new PC Leader and NDP Jim Dinn have held their own in support since the last election. Neary should be able to keep the seat in PC hands, the potential vote splitting by the independent candidate will likely be negligible compared to the overall PC lean of the riding. If the Liberals place distant third, despite their new branding and relative high-profile candidate, that will likely indicate that national trends are impacting otherwise more local races. The NDP can hope to place a strong second, but this is territory they have not won previously on the provincial level, although at the polling station level federally they have fairly recently shown some strength. Final prediction is a PC hold, vote shares PC around 60%, NDP and Liberals around 20% a piece, IND a few percentage points. (Overall result predicted, not vote share).