New Brunswick provincial election 2020

[mileslunn]

Higgs definitely is ahead now, but much like David Peterson and Theresa May could backfire.  On other hand Harper in 2008 and Pallister last year didn't so could see it going either way.  Certainly if there is a spike it could backfire but with so few cases in Atlantic Canada risk probably less than say in BC or nationally, but still a gamble.  Israel in late May and Australia in mid June were almost as low as New Brunswick and now seeing spikes, especially bad in first one.

[mileslunn]

Mainstreet: 38-32-19-7-4.

https://qc125.com/proj/2020-08-31-NB-Mainstreet-338Canada.pdf

The race is evidently tightening up.

Actually makes little difference seat wise.  New Brunswick has very large linguistic divides so PCs need a 20 point lead in polls before you will see them getting over 30 seats due to weakness in Francophone areas.  By contrast they need to be trailing by significant margin before you see them losing a whole bunch of Anglophone areas.  So whether tied or 15 points ahead, only flips around 5 seats.

[mileslunn]

Last election PCs + PANB was 44% and it seems more or less PCs have largely cannibalized the PANB thus polling close to the combined total.  Liberal vote has fallen a bit, most likely to Greens.  Seems though with big linguistic divides, a 10 point PC lead vs. 5 point Liberal lead is maybe only 5 seats difference as Liberals would need a bigger lead before they start making gains in Anglophone areas while PCs bigger lead before gaining in Francophone areas.

[mileslunn]

Why exactly is New Brunswick so linguistically polarized?

More due to fact Blaine Higgs doesn't speak French and was a candidate for Confederation of Regions party (anti-bilingual party) back in 90s so not trusted by Francophones to respect their rights.  In Anglophone areas, he won big more because he handled pandemic well and he promised steady leadership, no rocking the boat which is I think what people want.  Some like Bernard Lord have broken linguistic divide and indeed if PCs had a bilingual leader who performed as well as Higgs they might have won a landslide similar to Lord in 1999.  So while true Francophone areas tend to be more Liberal than PC, a different leader could have done better.

For Anglophone areas, Liberals have pretty much lost connection so need to figure out what they stand for and have an appealing platform.  Obviously by nature the rural southern areas are always going to go PC, but the middle belt and urban Anglophone ones could go Liberal with right leader and right policies.

[mileslunn]

Anyone have party breakdown by municipality for following:

Fredericton
Moncton
Saint John

Also a map by county and municipality would be interesting if someone could do one.

[mileslunn]

Here's a three-part map: the first shows the winning share of the vote in each constituency, the second shows the winning margin, and the third shows the swing.

Do you have breakdown using municipal boundaries, specifically for Moncton, Miramichi, Fredericton, and Saint John.  Also county map would be neat.