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NL Election 2011, continued
October 11, 2011 - 7:42pm
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Both St. John's Centre (Gerry Rogers) & St. John's East (George Murphy) are looking like NDP pick-ups.
Liberals elected in 3 seats (Cartwright-L'anse au Clair, Bay of Islands and Burgeo-La Poile), leading in 2 more (Torngat Mountains and St. Barbe), and hot on the heels of the Tories in Humber Valley, so they could conceivably get to 6.
The NDP is elected in Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi and St. John's North, has decent leads (400+ votes) in St. John's Centre and St. John's East, a 200-vote lead in The Straits-White Bay North, and a tiny lead of just 25 in Burin-Placentia West. I don't think they are close anywhere else.
The Liberals could yet finish better than the NDP in the seat count. Even a tie means they retain Official Opposition status. Looks like rural voters in Western Newfoundland and Labrador have saved the Liberals from electoral oblivion.
Some of the polls left are the advance polls, the NDP may not get those rural ridings. Its incredibly close.
The NDP lost Burin—Placentia West on the advance polls and special ballots. Forty votes.
Well... maybe.
The NDP has lost Burin-Placentia West by 40 votes. They should win The Straits-White Bay North - there is only one poll left to report and Mitchelmore has a 235-vote lead. St. John's East is not called but the NDP has a 500-vote lead with only 5 polls left to report.
Unless the Tories manage to retake the lead in St. Barbe, the Liberals will be the Official Opposition. Where there is a tie, the Speaker determines who will form the Official Opposition, but by convention the incumbent party remains the Official Opposition. I suppose the NDP could make the pitch that they beat the Liberals in the popular vote, but as we all know in a FPTP system that doesn't usually count for much.
Liberals declared elected in St. Barbe.
Mitchelmore is elected in The Straits-White Bay North by 200 votes. St. John's East called for the NDP.
The Liberals could still take Humber Valley - they are only 68 votes behind the Tories. Labrador West is the only other uncalled seat but the Tories have a healthy 600-vote lead with just 3 polls left so I'm not sure why it hasn't been called.
Looks like the final numbers (barring recounts) are 37 or 38 PC, 5 or 6 Lib, 5 NDP, depending on the outcome of Humber Valley.
Not quite so good as hoped, but 5 seats isn't too bad.
The NDP tripled its popular vote and quintupled its seat count from the last election, but still it's a bit disappointing to see the Liberals (likely) retain Official Opposition status when they appeared to be on the ropes. Then again, this is the one Province that still voted overwhelmingly for the federal Liberals in May, so I suppose we should not be too surprised at the outcome.
Listening to the commentary on CBC NL it is not at all clear who becomes the official opposition in case of a tie. The speaker will take various factors into consideration including POPULAR VOTE.
This is the best result in NL NDP history. More importantly some of the new MHAs sound like strong reps. Frankly this is a great result to build on. If the NL NDP can hold its ground/prove its mettle in the next session, this campaign has shown how high the ceiling has become (the 33% support and 45% of second choices poll that came out this election was astounding...but the party has to lay solid foundations across the ridings to capture that support).
The Liberals won Humber Valley.
When the Speaker of the New Brunswick legislature was called on to address the issue in the 1990s, the Speaker reviewed the authorities and concluded that the key factor was incumbency, and that convention favoured the incumbent opposition following an election:
Source: Canadian Parliamentary Review.
So while the decision is still within the Speaker's discretion, precedent dictates that the Liberals remain the Official Opposition.
And after posting all that, I see that it's all moot with the Liberals winning in Humber Valley.
Anyways, congrats to the NDP on their greatest victory in Newfoundland and Labrador!
Official party status requires 4 seats. I assume this is the first time in Newfoundland and Labrador history that two opposition parties have won at least 4 seats.
yes congrats fellow NDPers!
Our expectations have been so raised by some of the events of the past six months that we feel slightly disappointed by results that would have been considered good beyond belief just a few months ago. If you had told me in February that the NDP would get 23% in Ontario and go from 10 seats to 17 - I would have thought you were nuts. If you had told me two months ago that the Newfoundland NDP would quadruple its vote and go from one seat to five - i also would have thought you were nuts.
But, I think that these results show us that massive sweeps out of now ehere like the Orange Crush in Quebec happen once in a lifetime. The rest of the time you can never underestimate your opponents and you have to claw your way up one seat at a time. The Liberals are like cockroaches - you keep stepping on them over and over again and they still aren't quite dead - yet.
I think that's right. IIRC, the best the NDP had done up to this point was 2 seats (1999 and 2003).
One particularly important aspect of tonight's result, in my view, is that while Liberal support was largely concentrated in rural Western Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador, they were pretty much decimated everywhere else and did particularly poorly in metro St. John's. I don't think they had more than maybe one or two second-place finishes on the entire Avalon peninsula.
While NDP support was largely centred in and around metro St. John's, they also did fairly well in some 'non-traditional' areas like The Straits-White Bay North and Burin-Placentia West. This suggests to me that when support for the Tories does eventually falter, the NDP may be better positioned to capture that defecting Tory support than the Liberals. In other words, the long term trends here probably favour the NDP, if they can keep the momentum.
This shows the potential to grow. The NDP finished a credible 2nd in many ridings.
There'll be quite a few by-elections coming up sooner than later for the NDP to compete in.
Any PCs who get shuffled out of cabinet, their resignations will be in 1-2 years.
That might include Clyde Jackman and Ross Wiseman.
True
If the NL NDP makes a few changes, and prepares well enough, maybe next time. As it stands, this is a big boost for the NL NDP's credibility. 5 MHAs vs. 1 is night and day...just ask the Alberta NDP.
I think I need to puke.
Newfoundland may have bucked the trend of moving towards a polarized Tory-NDP spectrum, but meanwhile in Yukon the NDP is on track to go from 1 seat to Official Opposition status, while the Liberals have lost their leader and will be lucky to escape with two seats.
Vote share:
PC 56.09%
NDP 24.64%
Lib 19.07%.
Four MLAS from St. John's and an interesting fellow from the northern tip of Newfoundland: Christopher Mitchelmore, employed by Community Business Development Corporation Nortip, an advocate for Rural Community Economic and Business Development.
I'm surprised to see the disappointment and seat-centric analysis here.
The NDP placed 2nd in the province. Meaning: more voters chose the NDP than the Liberals.
A difference of about 250 votes (combined) allowed the Liberals to snatch Torngat Mountains, St. Barbe and Humber Valley from the PCs.
A difference of a little over 300 votes (combined) prevented the NDP from getting St. John's West and Burin-Placentia West.
Plus, and in confirmation of the regional polling data from CRA and Environics, each party seems to increasingly have strongholds in each of three regions: the Liberals in the West + Labrador; the PCs in the East and rural Avalon; and the NDP in urban Newfoundland, especially St. John's.
This regionalization of the vote, and the existence of a three-party system, is not terribly different from what exists in Nova Scotia and Ontario.