Final Projection –
Liberals 37.1% 24 Seats
Progressive Conservatives 31.6% 23 Seats
People’s Alliance 12.1% 1 Seat
Green 11.3% 1 Seat
New Democrats 6.7% 0 Seats
Other 0.9% 0 Seats
We are down to the wire in New Brunswick … both with the campaign ending and the polls tightening.
My model is my best prediction of what I believe is likely to happen – this goes with the larger than usual caveat that any number of different scenarios could occur today, the margin in 7 or so key constituencies is that tight, and could result in any variant from a 1-3 seat Liberal majority to 1-2 seat PC majority.
That said, Liberal Premier Brian Gallant is likely to hang on with at least a near-majority, continuing a trend line in recent years where New Brunswickers have been reluctant to re-elect back to back majority governments with healthy margins. The last time that a government was re-elected with any majority was 15 years ago (Bernard Lord); a re-elected majority greater than 1 or 2 seats would be 23 years ago with then Premier Frank McKenna.
Historically New Brunswickers have favoured the continuation of majority governments for more than one term – since close to the beginning of official partisan politics in the province with Liberal Allison Dysart’s re-election in 1939, all the Premiers prior to Bernard Lord were re-elected at least once with a healthy majority.
The current campaign has certainly occurred with at least some favourable tail winds for the Liberal banner – the start of the campaign saw Gallant lead his nearest rival, PC leader Blaine Higgs by double digits. The federal Liberals remain very popular in the province (holding all 10 seats in Parliament) and the Premier is said to be close political allies with both one of the leading federal New Brunswick cabinet ministers, Dominic Leblanc, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself.
This is not to say that the Premier has had enough personal popularity to maintain the initially high polling numbers – depending on the survey Premier Gallant has had either a modest net disapproval (or, in some surveys, worse) and there is reportedly some level of discontent with what has been reputed to be one of Canada’s most underperforming provinces economically with mounting levels of debt. The main opposition PC party has yet not been shown by any poll to have capitalized on what malaise exists, however, and for the first time since 1991, third parties appear poised to gain a larger share of the vote.
The fledgling People’s Action Party (PANB) under Kris Austin has trended upwards in recent polling, showing 16.4% in the latest Forum survey, while the Green Party also appears to have gained in the popular vote over 2014 with leader David Coons. The New Democrats appear to have lost some ground under Jennifer McKenzie.
While the PANB has clearly gained during the campaign, their problem is that they only have candidates running in 60% of the 49 ridings. Some believe that despite the lack of candidates, that PANB levels will hold up for two possible reasons – the localized nature of riding races would make poll respondents aware if they had a PANB candidate to vote for, and secondly, that the predominantly French-speaking areas were PANB lacks candidates is also where they consistently perform poorest. Still, this is a largely unprecedented problem for a party, where the demand in voting for said party likely outstrips their supply of candidates.
My model assumes that the dearth of PANB candidates in all 49 ridings will indeed have some impact on their overall levels in the popular vote – they have at least some level of support with francophone New Brunswickers and there are in at least some of the ridings where they lack candidates, some potentially higher levels of support – whether Anglophone or Francophone. It would be too simplistic, however, to cut their averaged level of polling support by 40% (to the percentage of ridings with PANB candidates), instead, considering various regional trends within the province, I ultimately determined that instead of a poll average of 14.9% level of support, they might get 80% of that average at 12.1% instead, with Kris Austin being the only MLA elected in Fredericton-Grand Lake and the party doing strongest overall in the capital region and the areas of the rural, southern parts of the province.
Most polls show the NDP and Greens moving in opposite directions, the former losing ground while the latter is expected to gain modestly in popular vote, particular in urban areas and some rural pockets, and re-elect David Coons in Fredericton South. Initially I had projected that NDP leader Jennifer McKenzie would win Saint John Harbour, (the area long held by one of her NDP predecessors, former leader Elizabeth Weir), however the lower polling average for the NDP and distribution of the vote in other urban areas makes this a less likely prospect.
This leaves us with the Liberals and PCs, who are expected to capture regions of the province deemed traditional strongholds for their respective parties. The Liberals, perhaps more troubling for them, are expected to win the more northern, francophone ridings by wide margins (reducing their vote efficiency) while the PCs expect to do strongly (by narrower margins) in the southern, more Anglophone ridings. To some extent the urban areas of the 3 largest cities, Fredericton, Moncton and St. John, promise to be battlegrounds. My model has identified 7 ridings, based on current polling trends, that may be truly pivotal as to the final outcome, and 5 additional ridings which may factor into play if the polling trends break in a different direction than what is shown here.
This is a brief synopsis of each of the 7 pivotal ridings:
- Carleton-Victoria – Liberal incumbent and Environment and Local Government minister Andrew Harvey narrowly won this rural western, St. John River valley district in 2014; despite the fact that Mr. Harvey has now been elevated to cabinet, there is a sufficient swing in my model that puts this riding within reach of the PC candidate
- Edmundston-Madawaska Centre – this predominantly francophone riding in northwestern New Brunswick was held by PC Madeline Dube since Bernard Lord’s sweep in 1999, four years ago she won narrowly and is not running for reelection. Former Liberal MP Jean-Claude D’Amours is running for Team Gallant this time, given the strong support the Liberal party has in francophone New Brunswick, this is likely to be the one Liberal pickup and pivotal to Gallant remaining in power
- Fredericton North – Deputy Premier Stephen Horsman defeated PC incumbent Troy Lifford in the newly redistributed riding of Fredericton North four years ago, by slightly less than a two percent margin, my model is showing that Mr. Horsman will hang on by an even narrower half a percent margin this time
- Fredericton West – Hanwell – Dominic Cardy ran as the NDP leader last election and narrowly lost this riding to PC incumbent Brian Macdonald; Macdonald is not running this year and Cardy is running again, this time as a PC. While my model predicts that Cardy will be the victor, it is also projecting a marked drop in NDP vote share and a roughly corresponding increase in PANB support, (where there was no candidate in 2014) – enough so that this could be a close fought race between him and PANB candidate Jason Paull
- Saint Croix, near the southwest corner, containing the towns of St. Stephen, St. Andrew and Campobello Island, was the one riding that kept flipping between the Liberals and PCs in my model. The incumbent Liberal, John B. Ames, is Minister of Tourism, Heritage and Culture. The PC challenger is former federal MP and cabinet minister Greg Thompson. The current projection is showing a PC pickup by four tenths of a percent.
- St. John East – this riding experienced a rather unprecedented turn of events four years ago when the newly elected Liberal, Gary Keating, quit his position after a few weeks of the election. A subsequent by-election saw his previous PC opponent, Glen Savoie, win a convincing victory. All three parties have held this riding in the past 4 decades, with recent PC wins resulting from a three way-split between the Liberals and NDP. If the Liberal and NDP vote consolidate behind the Liberal candidate, this will make this a closely fought race, otherwise Mr. Savoie should be returned to the legislature for the PCs.
- St. John Harbour – NDP leader Jennifer McKenzie hopes to return the riding to the orange column as it was under NDP MLA Elizabeth Weir. Declining poll numbers for the provincial NDP make this unlikely, even if she marginally improves on the party’s showing in 2014. This may ultimately help the PC candidate, Barry Ogden, who might also benefit from the fact that the Liberal incumbent and former cabinet minister, Ed Doherty, is not running for reelection.
And a synopsis of the 5 additional ridings which may or may not be as pivotal
- Fredericton Grand Lake – PC incumbent Pam Lynch has represented the riding (or its predecessor Fredericton – Fort Nashwaak), since 2010. Last election she won narrowly over PANB leader Kris Austin by 26 votes. My current projection of this rematch shows Austin comfortably winning, if this happens to be incorrect and Lynch retains the riding, this could prove pivotal to the PCs winning an overall plurality and possibly returning to the government benches.
- Fredericton York – PC incumbent Kirk MacDonald is running again for a sixth term as MLA, my model is showing that he is likely to be returned to the legislature after fending back a strong PANB challenge from Rick DeSaulniers, who along with PANB leader Kris Austin in Fredericton-Grand Lake and Fredericton West – Hanwell candidate Jason Paull, are projected as having the greatest change of being PANB MLAs after Monday evening
- Moncton Northwest – there is a very small chance of a Liberal pickup given polling which suggests Liberal strength in the Moncton area. PC incumbent Ernie Steeves won this open riding 4 years ago comfortably and the model does not suggest a swing sufficient enough for a Liberal gain
- Moncton Southwest – PC incumbent Sherry Wilson won this redistributed riding four years ago by four points, (she was previously the MLA for Petitcodiac – partly the same territory). Relatively strong levels of Liberal support in this region might make this a gain if the Liberals surpass their popular support levels as determined in the model.
- Shippagan-Lamèque-Miscou was one of the few closely fought northern ridings four years ago, with current Liberal incumbent, and Minister of Agriculture, Mines and Rural Affairs Wilfred Roussel, defeating then-PC incumbent and Deputy Premier Paul Robichaud four years ago. The model indicates that the race may still be closely fought, but given that it is now the Liberals who have advantages of incumbency in this northern riding, Rossel might have an easier time being elected this time than his predecessor four years ago.
In summation, the Liberals are likely to retain an overall plurality of votes and seats. While in normal elections they may benefit from a split of the opposition vote, they also have less voter efficiency than the PCs under Blaine Higgs. They could potentially increase their vote share in the northern francophone ridings while simultaneously dropping by 5 or more points in province-wide vote share. The key ridings in the urban areas will likely be decided by razor-thin margins, in some cases of a few dozen votes. If all the closely fought ridings were to trend in one or more directions, the upper end of Liberal strength might be a 29 seat majority, or for the PCs a 27 seat majority.
In the longer term, it appears that after today New Brunswick would be no closer to electing successive, stable majority governments than where they have been in the past 2 decades. The emergence of this increased electoral volatility might lend itself to further analysis to see what underlying dynamics could be causing some of the quickest rates of government turnover in Canada. Nationally a re-elected Premier Gallant could bolster the fortunes of the federal Liberals. Prime Minister Trudeau has already lost a close ally in Ontario Premier Kathleene Wynne at the first minister’s table, and after October 1st might also lose Quebec Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard. Even a narrow Liberal win in New Brunswick today could signal to the federal Liberals that their key constituencies are holding up for next year’s federal election. The likeliest scenario of a minority Liberal government being bolstered by Green leader David Coon (probably due to the PCs pledge to remove the province from a carbon tax proposal) might even portend the next federal election, where a progressive leaning Trudeau government may make common cause with the NDP and Greens in Ottawa to retain power if they, too, fall from majority status due to increased electoral volatility.