New Brunswick, more numbers (regional)

I'd like to dig into some of the numbers resulting from the election. Lets start in Acadian ridings.


Franco
14 LIB   57.13%
  1 PC    21.75%
  1 GRN 11.75%
  0 NDP  7.82%
  0 PA    0.44%

The Liberals managed to take a massive 57% here, but the PC party is still the preferred alternative, with the Tories taking first or second in 12 of the 16 ridings. The problem for the Tories remains just how far back they are behind the Liberals; had the PC vote doubled in each of these ridings they would only have won two additional seats.

PANB meanwhile will have some serious work, capturing only 7.54% in one of these ridings; Campbellton-Dalhousie, which itself, is the most Anglophone riding included, being 42% English by mother tongue.

The Green vote is interesting in that it does not differ much from...


Anglo
21 PC  36.98%
  7 LIB 28.12%
  3 PA  18.67%
  2 GRN 11.95%
  0 NDP 3.59%

This shows the strength of the Alliance, but also why the Tories took the most seats. 37% in the English speaking ridings is nothing to sneeze at, and at those levels it is not unreasonable to win what amounts to basically 2/3rds of the seats. (FPTP can be strange like that) The 28% should be worrying for the Liberals, especially considering how most of the major Urban areas in in this part of the province.

What I find interesting is when you narrow things down to...


Very Anglo (80% Anglo or more)
19 PC    38.93%
  3 LIB   24.58%
  3 PA    21.63%
  1 GRN 11.46%
  0 NDP  3.11%

You don't actually see much of a difference. The Liberals drop 4 ridings, but PANB only makes slight gains. A lot of the PANB strength is not found on the Anglophone fringe of the province, but in Anglophone areas where there are Francophones either nearby, or working, such as Miramichi and Fredericton respectively. In fact I suspect it is this "invisible neighbour" aspect that drives the PANB vote, and why they've been unable to match the CoR's success in the areas around...


Moncton
7 LIB   45.09%
5 PC    29.98%
1 GRN 12.17%
0 PA    5.97%
0 NDP  5.47%

At one time Saint John was the dominant city in New Brunswick, but Moncton now dominates. The area has grown from what was once three somewhat separate cities (Moncton, Riverview, and Dieppe) into a more unified urban whole; one where French speakers are not uncommon. As someone who personally lived in the area, I can tell you the fact that the main shopping centres are between Moncton and Dieppe means you frequently hear people speaking french in any random given week living in Moncton.

Given the growth in the area in the past 30 or so years, it is not unthinkable that those in Riverview, in 1991, likely did not hear French as often as they do today, and that this could well be a driving factor in the Moncton area being the key regional difference between PANB and CoR's vote patterns. One place both PANB and CoR did well was...


Fredericton
4 PC    30.68%
2 PA    27.55%
1 LIB   22.49%
1 GRN 17.31%
0 NDP  1.82%

the "mess" I had feared really seems limited to this area. Note how very low the NDP vote is here as 4 parties fought over voters. A lot of the narrow defeats come from this area. Fredericton North was won by 31.61% for the Liberals vs 28.23% for the Tories. Oromocto by 31.95% for the Tories vs 30.71% for the Liberals. Fredericton West was on by Dominic Cardy, former NDP leader and new Tory MLA with 31.82% vs 27.93% for the Liberals. PANB won Fredericton-York with 33.73% compared to 30.88% for the Tories. This makes the Tory win in Carleton-York on 37.17% look like a Landslide over the 30.79% PANB vote. The Tory wins here were generally not by wide margins, which contrasts to things in...


Saint John
9 PC    47.67%
1 LIB   25.37%
0 PA    13.45%
0 GRN  7.85%
0 NDP  5.31%

Our final area we will look at today was a solid PC win. The city is known for leaning to the right historically, and a margin of victory this large is not unusual. The only two ridings the PC Party won over 50% of the vote in are here; Leader Blaine Higgs riding of Quispamsis, and Portland-Simmonds. The only Liberal win, in Saint John Harbour, was an extremely narrow one at 1,865 votes compared to 1,855 for the PC challenger.


In our next post I will directly compare PANB to CoR.