Next Nova Scotia general election

[DC Al Fine]

What do I have to do, post a riding by riding prediction to get people interested in this election again?

I dunno. The local media are openly calling the election "sleepy" and "boring"

Not the most exciting campaign.

[DC Al Fine]

Hmm interesting, might be an exciting election night after all.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm vacationing in the North Shore region of rural Nova Scotia this week. I drove through Amherst, the only town of significance in Cumberland North and Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin is winning the sign war handily over Bill Casey. I only saw a lone Tory sign. Make of that what you will.

[DC Al Fine]

When times does the polls close ?

8pm Atlantic time

[DC Al Fine]

Another thing to watch out for is the vote distributions of each party. Last time the Tories ran up the score in Cape Breton while narrowly losing seats in the rural mainland (sounds familiar doesn't it). Will have to see if that repeats next time.

[DC Al Fine]

And my prediction:

Liberal: 24
Tory: 23
NDP: 7
Independent: 1

I'm too lazy to write out every single seat, but here's a condensed version of my seat by seat prediction:

Independent: Smith-McCrossin in Cumberland North

NDP: All four currently held seats retained plus gains in Glace Bay-Dominion, Halifax Armdale and Sydney-Membertou

PC: All currently held seats retained, plus pickups in Antigonish, Colchester North, Guysborough-Tracadie  Lunenburg, Lunenburg West, Waverley-Fall River-Beaverbank.

Liberal: Losses noted above. Pick up Shelburne and Clare out of redistribution, pick up Richmond from Independent Alana Paon.

[DC Al Fine]

And my prediction:

Liberal: 24
Tory: 23
NDP: 7
Independent: 1

I'm too lazy to write out every single seat, but here's a condensed version of my seat by seat prediction:

Independent: Smith-McCrossin in Cumberland North

NDP: All four currently held seats retained plus gains in Glace Bay-Dominion, Halifax Armdale and Sydney-Membertou

PC: All currently held seats retained, plus pickups in Antigonish, Colchester North, Guysborough-Tracadie  Lunenburg, Lunenburg West, Waverley-Fall River-Beaverbank.

Liberal: Losses noted above. Pick up Shelburne and Clare out of redistribution, pick up Richmond from Independent Alana Paon.

You don't think the NDP has a shot of winning Sackville back?

Oh they have a shot, I'm just not doing tossups.

[DC Al Fine]

At least do it right and talk up the Atlantica Party

[DC Al Fine]

Results feed:

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/nova-scotia/2021/results/

Polls close in 90 minutes

[DC Al Fine]

Looking at maps, I noticed that there's a cluster of four Liberal seats on the coast of Bay of Fundy that they held by big margins in every election since 2003, regardless of how rest of the province or nearby seats voted. Anybody know what's behind that?

IMHO its largely due to some popular Liberal incumbents in that area, plus it was the home region of retiring Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil. Its not as if that part of the province is traditionally all that Liberal - several of those seats have gone Tory in the past and the federal riding that covers that area is often hotly contested.

Digby and Clare are traditional Liberal districts. Annapolis and Kings West are more Tory friendly historically, and aremore the result of very popular and effective local incumbents.

[DC Al Fine]

Looking like there was a late break to the Tories, at least in the rural mainland.

[DC Al Fine]

Smith-McCrossin takes the lead in Cumberland North

[DC Al Fine]

If the PC wins this after the Liberals started off so strong, what are the main reasons?

Rankin lost the plot with bad stories in the first week and never recovered (firing a candidate for having an OnlyFans, and telling her to lie and say she was resigning due to mental health among others) and never recovered

[DC Al Fine]

If the PC wins this after the Liberals started off so strong, what are the main reasons?

Rankin lost the plot with bad stories in the first week and never recovered (firing a candidate for having an OnlyFans, and telling her to lie and say she was resigning due to mental health among others) and never recovered

Were there any issues with the platform? Did the PC focus on healthcare maybe help?

No on the first count, definitely yes on the second.

Maritime healthcare is generally awful and the Tories outflanked the Liberals on it, particularly on rural healthcare.

[DC Al Fine]

Just noticed that all 3 candidates in Glace Bay-Dominion are called John.  One of them also has John as the middle name.

Beautiful. Very Nova Scotian

[DC Al Fine]

Just noticed that all 3 candidates in Glace Bay-Dominion are called John.  One of them also has John as the middle name.

Beautiful. Very Nova Scotian

Right now it is a virtual 3 way tie in the Battle of the Johns

This being Nova Scotia, I’ll bet that none of them are saints.

And all of them enjoy their liquor (says the Nova Scotian)

[DC Al Fine]

Once again my shoddy election prediction skills are on display again

[DC Al Fine]

Iain Rankin is conceding the race to Tim Houston

[DC Al Fine]

It seems the NDP result worsened overnight. They've lost one seat compared to 2017 ans more or less broke even in the popular vote. I have no idea what constitutes must-resign result for the NDP. Any Dippers want to weigh in?

One of those elections which will make perfect sense in hindsight, but not so much at the time. Great result for the PCs.

Anyone know what happened in Northside Westmount? I'm aware the Liberal candidate was good and the PC candidate only just won the by-election but it's an odd one.

It's mostly the Liberal candidate (which I admittedly missed), but also, there were issues with the Tory's nomination in the by-election. The Tories fired their candidate and appointed the one who lost last night. The fired candidate ran as an independent and got nearly 20% of the vote, nearly costing the Tories the seat. I guess he was never able to shake those issues.

[DC Al Fine]

On other thing I noticed: the shift of the Liberals to being the party of the Halifax suburbs is really evident in these results. Looks very different from their previous losses.