I guess people are thinking of rural NL as being traditionally safe Liberal, as it was one of the few strong Liberal regions in 2011. One has to remember the visceral hatred that Newfoundlands had of Stephen Harper (to the point that their Tory Premier was running an "anybody but Conservative campaign"). Take Harper off the (metaphorical) ballot, and the province gets interesting again.
To add to what Earl said, the Tories did better in rural Newfoundland this election than they did in 1997 with the Atlantic Chretien backlash, or Mulroney's 1988 result. This indicates that rural Newfoundland has had a rightward trend that goes beyond individual candidates doing well.
I heard an anecdote from a friend after the 2019 election which indicated this could have been the case. She worked in Scheer's office at the time and had said that one of her colleagues had basically been drafted to run as a paper candidate in one of the rural Newfoundland ridings (I think either Long Range Mountains or Coast of Bays--Central--Notre Dame) because they couldn't find a local candidate in time. Whichever one it was, apparently he did little-to-no campaigning there, instead helping out candidates elsewhere in the Atlantic provinces, but on election night the CPC vote share with him on the ballot increased by over 15%.
