Prince Edward Island provincial election - April 3, 2023

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A PEI poll was just released by Narrative:

PCs - 49% (up 12% from 2019 election)
Greens - 22% (down 9%)
Liberals - 19% (down 10%)
NDP - 9% (up 6%)

https://narrativeresearch.ca/satisfaction-with-king-government-remains-strong-in-pei/

Given the general history of PEI elections, that's getting into sweeping-the-legislature territory--or, as mentioned, 1-1-1 opposition territory.  (Ah, the government-in-waiting buzz about the Greens last time has *really* faded)

[adma]

A PEI poll was just released by Narrative:

PCs - 49% (up 12% from 2019 election)
Greens - 22% (down 9%)
Liberals - 19% (down 10%)
NDP - 9% (up 6%)

https://narrativeresearch.ca/satisfaction-with-king-government-remains-strong-in-pei/

Given the general history of PEI elections, that's getting into sweeping-the-legislature territory--or, as mentioned, 1-1-1 opposition territory.  (Ah, the government-in-waiting buzz about the Greens last time has *really* faded)

In the 1935 election, the Liberals won all 30 seats.

While only winning 58-42 and despite having a bedridden leader who died months not long after.

And more recently, the opposition party (first Lib, then PC x 2) in '03/07/11 getting 4/5 seats to the victor's 22/23 seats despite managing over 40% of the vote (and as high as 42.9% in '03)

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Once again stating for the record that I am not from PEI, so don’t think I’m an expert here.

That aside, I’d guess that the PCs will curbstomp their opponents. NDP will continue to be an embarrassment and the Greens will likely come out ahead of the Liberals (that’s not saying much though).

I'm not expecting any miracles but the PEI NDP seems to have its act together more this time than in the last few elections. They already have candidates in 17/27 ridings and they seem to have brought in organizers from Nova Scotia etc... so maybe there could be a three way tie for official opposition if the Liberals, Greens and NDP each win one seat!

Which seat exactly would be the lone Liberal seat? Their leader is running against Bevan-Baker, so it's not going to be her.

The Liberals lost their safest seat in the province in a by-election in 2021, so it's not going to be it, either.

Looks like Tignish-Palmer Road might be the next "safest" Liberal seat maybe?

For the NDP it MIGHT be O'Leary-Inverness on Herb's personal vote and a general up-swing for the NDP, that's the most likely. But it could be leader Michelle Neill's seat of Charlottetown-Brighton. The current Green MLA lost re-nomination so there is no incumbent running, odds are not in here favour but you never know.

Amidst this quasi-whimsical speculation, just to interject to remind one and all that the classic "1-1-1 opposition" result of our time was in Scotland in the '15 UK election (i.e. everything SNP but for one Labour, one Tory, one Lib Dem)

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This isn't anywhere near as significant as it sounds, but since (up to now) it was a Green Party talking point, this is the first election in Canadian history where a Green Party MLA was defeated.

*Federally*, though, Paul Manly was defeated in 2011 (and I'm not including party-jumpers like Bruce Hyer)

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I'm also wondering if there's ever been a major party leader/incoming opposition leader to bomb as badly in his/her individual riding as Sharon Cameron (14.7% for a distant 3rd)

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I'm also wondering if there's ever been a major party leader/incoming opposition leader to bomb as badly in his/her individual riding as Sharon Cameron (14.7% for a distant 3rd)

And anyone with half a brain could've predicted that would happen too. Why she decided to run against PBB is beyond me.

Except that because she's a freaking party leader, it would have been casually easy to presume that the *PCs*, notwithstanding their overwhelming province-wide polling lead, would have been the also-rans in the race.  Or at least, that there would have been more of a 3-way dynamic than there actually was.

Though one thing about the overall final result: in a province with a history of sweeps and near-sweeps, the fact that opposition parties managed to eke out 5 seats *must* count as some kind of pyrrhic victory given the polling odds against them.  (And even Cameron's disastrous leadership couldn't drown the Libs' ancestral E Island base; so, the ball's henceforth in their court even more than they could have imagined.)

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It wasn’t so long ago that the PEI Liberals had almost every seat and the PCs were on life support…

But that's when PEI was truly electorally binary; that is, even apparent life support couldn't snuff out the Tories' status as the one available, viable alterna-option, should the electorate tire of the status quo.  Thus PEI was never fated to become a Lougheed Alberta-type one-party state.

Through the Libs re-attaining official opposition status and holding on to some of their ancestral base, 2023 *might* seem to portend a return to the binary comfort zone after 2019's Green-third-option flirtation.  (Or, the Libs finishing ahead of the Greens positions them favourably in the same way that Greens previously getting elected in PEI and NB positioned them favourably relative to the shut-out NDP.  Or for that matter, akin to how the NDP finishing ahead of the PCs in Ontario in '87 positioned them for the "Bob Rae surprise" in 1990.)

Plus, Bevan-Baker's seat is really a Bevan-Baker seat before it's a Green seat, and I can't necessarily see it staying in the fold in his absence.  (The other surviving Green seat--Charlottetown-Victoria Park--at least has "inner urbanity" going for it.)