Election has not been called yet but there is speculation it will happen this summer before federal. If not, by law must be by next May at latest. I would think with the strong recovery and most getting vaccinated, it would be interest of Liberals to go sooner rather than later. And also with lots of talk on federal elections that probably helps too as federal Tories very unpopular in Nova Scotia but provincial PCs are much more moderate and if federal in rear view mirror could do better. While not a lot of polls my thoughts are as follows:
Liberals: Definitely the favourites, but have been in power for 8 years and are vulnerable on some fronts but still probably win, possibly a landslide if things go well.
PCs: More likely to lose than gain seats, but their leader is fairly competent and I've found in Atlantic Canada PCs almost always outperform pre-election polls. Perhaps confusion with federal Tories who are a lot less popular there hurts them.
NDP: I think 2017 is when they had to come in second to establish themselves as main alternative to Liberals. Fact they did not means they might have missed their window of opportunity to come back.
Actually, when it comes to the NSNDP, 2017 was less about bidding for second per se than about reasserting its relevance--which is why their campaign tacked more to the left than the moderation which had earlier brought Darrell Dexter to government.
And indeed, don't rule out the NDP reassuming 2nd place this time--at least if Tories wind up being weighed down by a crippled national brand (not unlike the negative Mulroney effect circa 1990)
