Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.
This newsletter might be too long for your email inbox, but you should be able to expand to read it all once you get to the bottom!
By the time I gave up on Elections Nova Scotia finishing the count as the clock approached 1 AM Atlantic time, one thing was at least clear: Tim Houston’s PCs won a massive victory in a tough time for incumbents.
Granted, Houston has only been an incumbent for three years. He still has some of that “new premier smell” about him. But the results were nevertheless remarkable. With about 98% of polls reporting, the PCs were leading or elected in 42 seats, a gain of 11 from the last election and tying the all-time record for largest Nova Scotia caucus ever that was set by John Buchanan in 1984. The PCs also won over 50% of the vote, a gain of some 14 points since the last election — nearly all of it coming from the Liberals as the PCs picked off Liberal seat after Liberal seat in the rural mainland and Halifax suburbs.
The New Democrats did not get the clear second-place finish in the popular vote that the polls suggested they could. At publishing time, the NDP was fewer than 3,000 votes behind the Liberals in third. But their votes came out where they needed to, as the NDP held the six seats in Halifax, Dartmouth and Cape Breton they won in 2021 and picked up two from the Liberals and one from the PCs in the Halifax region. Their nine seats and 22% of the vote is the party’s best performance since it was last drummed out of power in 2013.
It was a rough night for the Liberals — just how rough is unclear as the result in leader Zach Churchill’s riding of Yarmouth was still uncalled and the Liberals were leading by just three votes (or maybe more? there were problems with the Elections Nova Scotia site all night) in Annapolis when I shut things down for the night. The count in the chart above assumes the Liberals lose Yarmouth, but they could end up with as many as four seats or as few as two, if they lose both Annapolis and Yarmouth. The all-time worst performance for the Liberals was three seats in 1925, while the party is on track to have its lowest share of the vote ever.
There will be more results to pick through over the coming days and weeks, as well as some counting to be finalized. But, as expected, it was a good night for Tim Houston, a decent night for Claudia Chender, newly installed as official opposition leader, and a bad night, bordering on very bad night, for Zach Churchill.
Yesterday, Philippe and I recorded our monthly special episode of The Numbers on a topic voted on by our members. They wanted a 2025 Leader Resignation Draft, so we made our top picks of the party leaders we think are most likely to call it quits over the next 12 months. If you haven’t already, join here to listen now! We’ll have a regular free episode of The Numbers out later this week.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on how the polls performed in Nova Scotia, a byelection called by Danielle Smith and a recommendation from Elections Québec that would limit a premier’s ability to call byelections.
Why it makes sense to pump the brakes on reactions to that new Mainstreet poll, plus how the federal parties line up in Nova Scotia and where things stand provincially in PEI and Newfoundland & Labrador.
Andrew Furey would win another majority if the election were held today.
Lucien Bouchard vs. Jean Charest in the #EveryElectionProject.
Upcoming milestones for Dennis King, Pierre Poilievre and Bonnie Crombie.
