Newfoundland and Labrador election, 2019

[Hatman 🍁]

Truly an insane result.

Can't believe the NDP won three seats after running in only 14 ridings. Clearly a miracle. And Labrador West? I thought they were running a no name candidate up there!

Well, I didn't think it was likely, but here we are a Liberal minority, and the closest election ever to boot.

Looks like the NLA did fairly well in the ridings they ran in. Clearly people wanted change, but not the Tories.

[brucejoel99]

The blue wave crashes on the rock! Much had been made of the run of conservative governments. Conversely, NL seems to have looked around, presumably said to themselves, "nah this aint it chief," & decided not to join in.

In all seriousness, though, glad to see that another province didn't fall to the conservatives.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

[brucejoel99]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

Really? I've heard in passing that it was Williams & his PC's who were responsible for NL's debt crisis. Is this a massive oversimplification, or just plain wrong?

[MAINEiac4434]

What's the deal with the independents elected? Who are they, and why did they win?

[Hatman 🍁]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

Really? I've heard in passing that it was Williams & his PC's who were responsible for NL's debt crisis. Is this a massive oversimplification, or just plain wrong?

Well, there is that of course. But TBF, the province is in such economic shambles, no one can really help it without begging to Ottawa for more money. And that would be true no matter which party is in charge.

What's the deal with the independents elected? Who are they, and why did they win?

Two MHAs thrown out of their caucuses, but remain personally popular in their districts. Personal popularity is very important in NL.

[MAINEiac4434]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

Really? I've heard in passing that it was Williams & his PC's who were responsible for NL's debt crisis. Is this a massive oversimplification, or just plain wrong?

Well, there is that of course. But TBF, the province is in such economic shambles, no one can really help it without begging to Ottawa for more money. And that would be true no matter which party is in charge.

What's the deal with the independents elected? Who are they, and why did they win?

Two MHAs thrown out of their caucuses, but remain personally popular in their districts. Personal popularity is very important in NL.

Yeah, reading up on them, it feels like standard local politician scandals, as the harassment charge against Joyce was roundly disproven.

[136or142]

Interesting that the NDP appears to have won three seats (assuming they hold on to Labrador West in the recount) but came in second in only one other, and only by default (Waterford Valley, where there was no Tory candidate).

It seems most people assume that because Labrador West isn't in central St John's that the NDP shouldn't have much support in the area.  If you check the 2015 election result, Labrador West was the NDP's 3rd best result, and one of only four ridings in that election that they came in second place.  (Then Party leader Earle McCurdy came in second in St John's West.)

I'd assume that this is industrial Labrador and the NDP does well there in the same way that the NDP does well in industrial Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

[136or142]

Truly an insane result.

Can't believe the NDP won three seats after running in only 14 ridings. Clearly a miracle. And Labrador West? I thought they were running a no name candidate up there!

Well, I didn't think it was likely, but here we are a Liberal minority, and the closest election ever to boot.

Looks like the NLA did fairly well in the ridings they ran in. Clearly people wanted change, but not the Tories.

The NDP candidate is a local activist on issues of Labrador heritage.  He's the heritage director of Gateway Labrador.  He led some campaign on behalf of the Labrador flag and apparently gained a following over that.

According to the CBC, when discussing candidates Alison Coffin specifically mentioned Jordan Brown as a person she had high expectations for.  I put on the CBC live stream after the advanced vote had been counted and the NDP was ahead in only one riding at the time, and the NDP representative on the broadcast said they hoped to win three ridings.  I don't know if the NDP really expected to win it, but, as I wrote in my previous post, this was the third best riding for the NDP in 2015.

On the other hand, apparently the NDP did not put any resources into winning the riding and they said Alison Coffin didn't campaign in Labrador.

[beesley]

Have to say I found watching the results quite tedious. Needless to say my prediction was a bit off:

Although I predicted the NDP performing better in SJC then the other ridings, which was correct, a gain in Labrador West seemed unlikely to me, not because it was impossible but it just seemed like that. I didn't think this was the right year for history to repeat itself.
Torngat Mountains was extraordinary - was there some sort of local issue?
The Liberals performed better in St John's than I expected with Mount Scio and Virginia Water staying in their hands.
Most of us predicted the Central ridings correctly - it was just Bonavista and Lewisporte respectively where things went unexpectedly.

[adma]

Another thing to consider about Lab W: under Jack Harris's leadership, Randy Collins made it the party's "second seat" a generation ago.  So there's definitely history here.

[DL]

The United Steelworkers have a lot of members in Labrador West and USW is a very pro ndp Union. They likely would have done a lot of campaigning for the ndp there.

[Hatman 🍁]

Labrador West isn't a surprise from an historical perspective, but it is a surprise in this particular election. Especially if Coffin didn't even go up there (makes sense though, it's very expensive to fly up to Labrador, and I'm sure the party has no money).

Looks like both Quidi Vidi and St. John's Centre have become pretty reliably safe NDP seats. I think the area has demographically become the home of your typical urban progressive voter. Progressive candidates tend to do better in this part of the city in municipal elections too.

[beesley]

Another thing to consider about Lab W: under Jack Harris's leadership, Randy Collins made it the party's "second seat" a generation ago.  So there's definitely history here.

Would he have felt more or less surprised, than the other politician called Randy from Labrador, I wonder?

[Hatman 🍁]

[mileslunn]

True Newfoundland bucked the blue wave and also unlike previous five elections, this is the first in a few years, but not first ever where Conservatives underperformed polls.  Mind you I think big reason for miss was NDP ran in only 14 ridings so probably in the 26 with no NDP candidate, that probably helped the Liberals.  Had NDP ran a full slate its quite possible it would have been enough to tip things in PCs favour although still close.  Nevertheless I think expectations were a bit high for Tories.  Still saw greater than 10 point swing and Newfoundland has never had a one term government so the PC showing if you ignore hyped up expectations wasn't actually that bad.  NDP did quite well for the situation they were placed in. 

Will be interesting if this is a minority or majority as that will depend on who puts up speaker.  Doubt PCs will and NDP probably wants to hold balance of power so won't either so if Liberals can convince one of the two Independents (both former Liberals) to run as speaker or cross the floor they have a majority, otherwise they have a minority.

[mileslunn]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

Really? I've heard in passing that it was Williams & his PC's who were responsible for NL's debt crisis. Is this a massive oversimplification, or just plain wrong?

Plunge in oil price more the reason.  True he offered pretty big tax cuts as while more a Red Tory, his tax cuts were comparable to the likes of Gordon Campbell, Ralph Klein and Mike Harris.  When he came to power, Newfoundland had the second highest top marginal rate after Quebec while when he left second lowest after Alberta.  Today now middle of the pack.  Ever since collapse of the cod fishery, Newfoundland has struggled economically, but when oil was at $100/barrel saw a strong jump in government revenues due to offshore oil.  In many ways much like Alberta if oil prices are high fiscal situation good, but when oil prices fall they end up in big trouble so need to find a way to either raise revenue from other sources or like Norway, save during high oil prices so they can use the fund to cover during downturns instead of spending it all.  Alberta at least with its larger population can use the argument low taxes will encourage more companies to relocate to Alberta thus diversifying whereas Newfoundland is too small for this to realistically happen.

[DL]

Judicial recount confirms the NDP win in Labrador West by a TWO VOTE margin! This means the Liberals lost their majority by TWO votes.

Every vote counts!

[Hatman 🍁]

Reading the Twitter thread about the recount process, it really could've gone either way. Some rather dubious decisions by the judges about which ballots should count and not.

[DL]

Reading the Twitter thread about the recount process, it really could've gone either way. Some rather dubious decisions by the judges about which ballots should count and not.

Can anything be appealed or is this final final?

[brucejoel99]

Reading the Twitter thread about the recount process, it really could've gone either way. Some rather dubious decisions by the judges about which ballots should count and not.

Can anything be appealed or is this final final?

Final.