Voters in New Brunswick will be heading to the polls on October 21 to elect their next provincial government. Incumbent Premier Blaine Higgs, leader of the Progressive Conservatives (PCs), is seeking a third term and Higgs’s main opponent is Liberal leader Susan Holt, former President of the New Brunswick Business Council.
Premier Higgs leads a government that is showing its age. Wracked with scandals, several leading ministers and PC MLAs have resigned. The government finds itself on a downward trajectory in public polling, with the Liberals now ahead of the PCs by an average of 6%, with one poll showing the Liberals with an 11% lead.
Despite these setbacks, the PCs may retain a strategic advantage due to their highly efficient vote-to-seat conversion. Similar to the federal Liberals’ victories in 2019 and 2021, where they secured fewer votes but more seats than the Conservatives, the PCs benefit from an efficient vote. They carry strong support in the seat-dense anglophone south, while in contrast, the Liberals dominate the more dispersed francophone north. This electoral distribution means the PCs could potentially secure a majority even while losing the overall popular vote.
As the only officially bilingual province, language plays a substantial role in the province’s political culture. Liberals typically perform well within the francophone community, while the PCs usually court anglophones. Back in 2018, Kris Austin led the People’s Alliance, a populist political party mainly focused on the treatment of anglophones within the province and opposing official bilingualism, to three seats in the legislature. Together with the Greens, they held significant political power. They were reduced to two seats following the 2020 provincial election and crossed the floor to join the PCs in March of 2022, shortly after the party was de-registered and Austin joined the Higgs cabinet.
Higgs faces an uphill battle, as no premier has won three consecutive terms since 1995. Nonetheless, Higgs has defied the odds before, winning a surprise minority government in 2018. Meanwhile, Holt, though relatively new to the Legislature, must overcome her party’s challenging electoral map and distance herself from the struggling federal Liberals.
The “magic number” is 25, the number of seats any party needs for a majority. The Liberals will likely target francophone-heavy Moncton and potentially Fredericton (where Holt grew up) while maintaining their lead in the north. In contrast, Higgs needs to increase his southern support and blunt potential Liberal gains in Moncton and Fredericton to maintain his Premiership.
The PA and Greens are wild cards in this election. If both can siphon off enough votes from either of the respective parties, they could give the opposite party a significant advantage in this tight race or play kingmaker should the election result in a minority government.
With unpredictable dynamics at play, including the influence of smaller parties, New Brunswick’s election remains a closely watched race.
