Voters in the province have given Andrew Furey’s Liberals a majority government today after Elections NL released the unofficial numbers following what seemed an endless and chaotic provincial election.
Out of the 40 provincial electoral districts, the Liberal Party took 22 seats (one more than the required 21), the PCs 13, NDP 2 and the NL Alliance 0, and there are three independents.
PC leader Ches Crosbie and NDP Leader Alison Coffin lost their seats.
As required by law, the official addition of the votes will take place on Tuesday. After the official addition is complete, the winning candidates will be declared elected.
The Telegram and SaltWire Network will have reaction from the leaders and other key information as election coverage continues today and in the days to come.
On Friday, Elections NL released the number of electors on the final revised voters lists for the 2021 General Election. In total in the 40 provincial districts 372,037 votes were cast.
Liberal Leader Furey took his district of Humber—Gros Morne with 2,838 votes over PC Jim Goudie 1,492 and NDP Sheina Lerman 107 votes. NL Alliance Leader Graydon Pelley was forced to pull out of the race and the district early in the campaign due to health reasons.
PC Leader Ches Crosbie lost his district of Windsor Lake with 2,154 votes to Liberal John Hogan with 2,688 votes. The NDP candidate Tomas Shea too 472 votes.
NDP Leader Alison Coffin also lost in her district of St. John’s East — Quidi Vidi garnering 2,394 votes to Liberal John Abbott’s 2,447 votes. The PCs Vaughn Hammond took in 856 votes.
In other key races, the district of Mount Scio featured four strong candidates but incumbent Liberal Sarah Stoodley re-claimed her seat with 2,011 votes. PC candidate Damian Follett received 1,152 votes, NL Alliance candidate Andrea Newbury got 60 votes, and the NDP’s Sheilagh O’Leary drew 1,074 votes.
In Labrador West, NDP candidate Jordan Brown (who won by two votes in the 2019 election) won dramatically this time around with 1,359 votes compared to Liberal Wayne Button’s 780 votes and PC Nick McGrath’s 577 votes.
In the central Labrador riding of Lake Melville, former Liberal cabinet minister and now independent member Perry Trimper won re-election with 1,143 votes compared to PC Shannon Tobin with 547 votes, Liberal Michelle Baikie with 306 votes, NDP Amy Norman’s with 279 votes, and independent Andrew Abbass’ 17 votes.
Humber-Bay of Islands, independent Eddie Joyce took his district again with 2,988 votes. Liberal Stelman Flynn received 741 votes while PC Robert Marche took in 444 votes.
Placentia—St. Mary’s Liberal Sherry Gambin-Walsh was re-elected with 2,552 votes compared to PC Calvin Manning with 2,336 votes and NL Alliance Clem J. Whittle with 131 votes.
In the May 2019 provincial election, former premier Dwight Ball’s Liberals ended up with a minority government — the first in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1971.
It was that minority government that Andrew Furey would inherit when Ball stepped aside and Furey won the Liberal leadership race — a race also impacted by COVID-19 — being sworn in as the province’s 14th premier on Aug. 19, 2020.
With a long period of low COVID-19 case numbers in the province and a favourable position in polling, Furey opted to risk calling an always unpopular mid-winter election and hope COVID-19 numbers would remain low throughout the election period.
The week of Jan. 11-15 left no doubt an election call was coming when cabinet ministers pulled out an old-style politics tradition of rushing out a flurry of announcements — programs, funding agreements, new funding — in the millions of dollars leading into an election campaign.
Furey dropped the writ on the Friday evening of Jan.15 in time for the supper hour television news, and during the first snowfall in weeks to hit the St. John’s area. That was 10 weeks ago and the election ended in a snowstorm on Saturday.
Election day was originally set for Feb. 13.
But the election faced unprecedented challenges in the weeks to come.
In-person voting was called off by Elections NL on the eve of election day because of a COVID-19 B.1.1.7 variant outbreak in the St. John’s metro area that saw electoral workers quitting in droves across the province, and then the province went into Alert Level 5 lockdown measures.
The election continued with mail-in ballots with deadlines extended until the final deadline of ballots to be received by Elections NL on March 25.
Nearly forgotten were the campaign promises, the leaders’ debates, and even many election signs meant to last a few weeks were blown down or lost in the snow banks.
The Telegram and SaltWire Network will have reaction from the leaders and other key information as election coverage continues today and in the days to come.
Past premiers
Past premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador
1. Joseph R. Smallwood (Lib.)
2. Frank D. Moores (PC)
3. A. Brian Peckford (PC)
4. Thomas G. Rideout (PC)
5. Clyde K. Wells (Lib.)
6. Brian Tobin (Lib.)
7. Beaton Tulk (Lib.)
8. Roger Grimes (Lib.)
9. Danny Williams (PC)
10. Kathy Dunderdale (PC)
11. Tom Marshall (PC)
12. Paul Davis (PC)
13. Dwight Ball (Lib.)
14. Andrew Furey (Lib.)
