2018 New Brunswick election

[136or142]

1.The Wikipedia numbers are slightly different than my totals for some reason (they have more voters.) I compiled my numbers from the Elections New Brunswick website. There was not a single riding I noticed where all the polls had not come in.  However, it doesn't change the totals significantly.  

2.Fairness has nothing to do with life, but this result was really not fair to the Liberals.  While it has been noted that the Liberals dominated Northern New Brunswick which gave them the popular vote win, in fact, from the Wiki regional breakdown, the Liberals came ahead of the Progressive Conservatives in 4 of the 6 New Brunswick regions.  The Liberals came first in 21 ridings, second in 20, and third in just 7 (4th in one.)

3.I think something of an unusual result.  Of the 27 ridings the Liberals won in 2014, 19 incumbents ran again and just 14 were reelected.  In the 8 ridings with no Liberal incumbent (one ran as an independent) the Liberals held 7 of those ridings.  

4.I think clearly the main reason the Liberals could not benefit from the People's Alliance splitting the vote with the P.Cs is because the ridings the P.A did best in were mostly P.C held ridings and the Liberals did not gain any seats from the P.Cs.  They came close in a couple of them, especially Oromocto-Lincoln-Fredericton where the P.C incumbent Jody Carr did not reoffer, and the Liberals ran John Fife, a retired Army Colonel.

5.Of the six ridings the Liberals lost, 3 went P.C, 2 went Green and 1 went P.A.

6.The stupidest loss I think had to be Shippagan-Lameque-Miscou, a riding in the otherwise heavily Liberal north where Wilfred Roussel lost to 'star' P.C candidate Robert Gauvin (he is the son of a former P.C MLA.)  Apparently this loss was a result of federal cuts to E.I benefits to the many seasonal workers in the riding.  The reason I think this loss was stupid was because I saw a clip on this riding and the P.C voters in this riding were interviewed at a Blaine Higgs rally in the riding and they said both "we're not happy with the E.I cuts" and then said "we believe that Blaine Higgs will solve the financial mess, the large deficits, that Brian Gallant has created."

I realize that the E.I program is federal, but this attitude clearly stems from the idiotic notion that when taxes are sent to governments, that governments 'waste' the money by somehow either burning it, locking it in a safe or otherwise 'wasting' it.  I have no doubt that if you were to interview many Canadians and explained the reality of government spending (nearly all money goes to public sector workers and much of the rest is sent out in various payments to people), that sending E.I payments to people who work less than half a year would be an example of where most people would say that cuts could be made.

7.The NDP received over 10% of the vote in four ridings.  One of those ridings, Dieppe, may have been because the NDP candidate Joyce Richardson might be a fairly high profile lawyer, but it might also be because the Green Party did not run a candidate in that riding.  She received 14.6% of the vote.  The second highest vote getter for the NDP was leader Jennifer McKenzie at 14.7%.  The other two ridings where the NDP received over 10% of the vote were two Northern ridings:  Tracadie-Sheila where Francis Duguay received 14.6% of the vote and Bathurst East-Nepisiguit-Saint Isidore where Jean Maurice Landry received 29.6% of the vote.  Landry is the President of the Blueberry Farmers of New Brunswick.


These are the results by region based on the numbers from Elections New Brunswick.

These are my total results

Total Votes 376,923
Liberal: 143,620
P.C: 118,212
P.A: 47,709
Green: 45,173
NDP: 19,026
Other: 3,183

These are the total results posted on Wikipedia

Liberal: 143,791
P.C: 121,300
P.A: 47,860
Green: 45,186
NDP:  19,039
Other: 3,187

I'm not sure where the differences come from.  As you can clearly see, the main difference is with the P.C vote, but I don't think that would alter the regional placements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brunswick_general_election,_2018  is where I've taken the regional breakdowns from, except for one mistake, which I haven't corrected for in these totals (sorry.)  


Northern: 61,570
Liberal: 33,973, 55.2%
P.C: 13,753, 22.3%
NDP: 6,413, 10.4%
Green: 5,652, 9.2%
P.A: 558
Other: 1,221

Miramichi: 24,313
P.A: 8,609, 35.4%
Liberal: 8,075, 33.2%
P.C: 5,727, 23.6%
Green: 972, 4.0%
NDP: 912, 3.8%
Other: 18

Southeastern: 115,461 (I mistakenly added the riding of Sussex-Fundy-St Martins in this region)
Liberal: 50,533, 43.8%
P.C: 32,569, 28.2%
Green: 16,984, 14.7%
P.A: 7,967, 6.9%
NDP: 6,011, 5.2%
Other: 1,397

Southern: 71,803? (Sussex-Fundy-St Martins should be counted in this region)
P.C: 33,300, 46.4%
Liberal: 15,051, 26.8%
P.A: 9,149, 12.7%
Green: 6,117, 8.5%
NDP: 3,609, 5.0%
Other: 382? (I may have double counted)

Capital Region: 66,931
P.C: 20,534, 30.7%
P.A: 18,440, 27.6%
Liberal: 15,051, 22.5%
Green: 11,583, 17.3%
NDP: 1,216, 1.8%
Other: 107

Upper River Valley: 36,845
Liberal: 16,742, 45.4%
P.C: 12,329, 33.5%
Green: 3,865, 10.8%
P.A: 2,986, 8.1%
NDP: 865, 2.3%
Other: 58

[136or142]

https://twitter.com/cryptom9/status/1044433283772145665?s=19

Either way, PC+PA would still have 1 more vote than Lib+Green since the Liberal would have won w/o the Green.

It'd be a different situation though if the Libs were even on seats with the PCs instead of one down.

It seems as though it actually isn't a different situation as based on convention the Liberals still get the first chance to form the government.

[136or142]

https://twitter.com/poitrasCBC/status/1045706579197218817

So if a PC minority government with PA support happens, will PA simply pull its support after 18 months and force new elections?

Not sure what anybody should make of this.  There is no agreement on anything other than the P.A leader has said his party won't bring down a P.C government for 18 months.  However, this is just an 'informal agreement' there isn't even an agreement on supply and confidence and the P.A also has a platform pledge to not whip votes, so how can he now promise his members won't vote to bring down a P.C government?

I'm not trying to play any politics here since I'm left leaning and these do seem to be the only possible parties that could agree (though maybe the P.Cs and the Greens can get together) baring recounts, but if this informal arrangement is the only agreement between the P.Cs and the P.A, I think the Lieutenant Governor would have to reject it as it simply provides no guarantees for even 18 months.

[136or142]

While the horse trading begins, ENB put out the poll-by-poll results out pretty quickly, and they're up on the atlas:

http://www.election-atlas.ca/nb/

Remember St-Quentin, that town in that usually votes Conservative out of spite? It went Green this time. Go figure.

Kind of amazing how the PANB didn't do that well in the south. They're basically the Fredericton exurbs + Miramichi party. I wonder if this is because much of the southwest is fairly religious, and not therefore not as prone to populism?

Pan A was to do well in the south, but this was PANB  and it worked out pretty well for them.