Poli Sci Prof Expects ‘Very Close’ Election

At least one New Brunswick political scientist says it has been a “sleepy” provincial election campaign in terms of news.

J.P. Lewis says most of the news happened this week as three candidates were dropped over past social media posts.

Victoria-La Vallee candidate Roland Michaud was ousted from the Progressive Conservatives on Monday afternoon. Hours later, the Liberals cut ties with their Saint Croix candidate, John Gardner.

Two days later, the People’s Alliance parted ways with Heather Collins, their candidate in Memramcook-Tantramar.

Lewis, an associate political science professor at UNB Saint John, says he is surprised we did not see something like this happen earlier in the campaign.

“We knew parties, even the major parties, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives, were scrambling in some cases to get candidates, so there you just assume the vetting process might be compromised a bit,” said Lewis.

The silver lining in the situation, he said, is how the leaders reacted quickly to remove the candidates from representing their party.

Lewis believes we may have seen similar incidents happen in a regular election when parties have more time to vet their candidates.

“In the last federal election it was happening and we knew that election was coming,” he said.

“If it’s about candidates filling out a questionnaire and maybe identifying if they’ve made any offensive posts, obviously they didn’t think they were offensive when they made the posts.”

Advance Polls

More people have decided to vote early in this election than in 2018, according to Elections New Brunswick.

Unofficial numbers show just under 133,000 New Brunswick cast their ballots at the advance polls on Sept. 5 and 8.

That compares to just under 88,000 votes cast during two days of advance voting in the 2018 provincial election.

But Lewis does not think this increase will translate into a higher voter turnout overall.

“I think this is more people being pragmatic about voting and getting out when they feel comfortable. Even though New Brunswick has done relatively well in terms of moving through the different recovery phases, the pandemic is still going on, it’s all around us,” he said.

Elections NB launched a multimedia campaign which promotes voting at returning offices, voting during the two days of advance voting and voting by mail to help avoid long lineups on election day.

Lewis said there are a lot of signs that we will not have high voter turnout this time around because it is a snap election and it was called in August, when people normally pay less attention to politics and news.

“Especially in 2020 where you’d imagine that people finally are taking that vacation time. They need a break from the news,” he said.

Ridings To Watch

At the end of the day, Lewis said there is a a “very narrow pathway” for the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives to form government, either minority or majority.

“I think this will be, if the polls are accurate, a very close election,” he said.

There are several ridings to watch in the province, he said, with Saint John Harbour probably being the most interesting one.

“It’s been incredibly close the last three elections, two of those elections by really a handful of votes. It could be the riding that decides who forms government,” said Lewis.

In the last election, the Liberals narrowly defeated the Progressive Conservatives by 10 votes.

Lewis said another riding to watch will be Miramichi, where Liberal leader Kevin Vickers will try to unseat Michelle Conroy of the People’s Alliance.

The political scientist said he will also be watching ridings in the Moncton area which have been close between the Tories and the Liberals.

Voters will head to the polls on Monday.