A federal Liberal sweep on P.E.I. is a familiar result, but Conservatives made some big gains

All four of Prince Edward Island's ridings staying Liberal red on a federal election night is not an unusual result, but this time it wasn't a guaranteed result by any means. 

The Liberal Party of Canada's three Island incumbents, plus one rookie candidate, eventually won seats on Parliament Hill when all the votes were counted Monday night and early Tuesday. 

In what ended up being a two-party race between the Liberals and Conservative Party of Canada, a trend that was largely reflected across the country, the blue brand did appear to make some significant gains over the previous election in 2021.

"The popular vote for the Liberal Party is certainly impressive, but it's not so far ahead of the CPC," said Don Desserud, a political science professor at UPEI. "The bigger story… is the strength of the Conservative vote, which is an odd thing to say because it wasn't that long ago that we were looking at a Conservative landslide." 

By 1:30 a.m. AT Tuesday, the Liberals had racked up about 58 per cent of the popular vote on P.E.I., compared to 37 per cent for the Conservatives. Nationally at the same time, the Liberals had 42.8 per cent of the vote and the Conservatives had 41.8 per cent. 

With polls still being reported across the country early Tuesday, the CBC Decision Desk was projecting that Mark Carney's Liberals would form the next government, though it remained to be seen whether it would be a majority or minority. 

As Desserud remarked, that kind of Liberal victory would have seemed almost impossible just a few months ago.  

Canadians had soured on former prime minister Justin Trudeau and poll after poll suggested Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would snap up the majority government he'd long been waiting for.

Then came Trudeau's resignation in early January, newly re-elected U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war against his country's traditional allies, and persistent barbs about making Canada the 51st state — flipping the political script.

With Trump announcing, pausing, then re-announcing devastating tariffs on Canadian goods, the campaign largely became a race about who could best steer Canada through global uncertainty. And at the end of the day, Canadians cast ballots in favour of Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England. 

Egmont

Still, the prospect of two-horse races did provide some drama on P.E.I., particularly in our westernmost riding.

The Egmont riding's incumbent Liberal, Bobby Morrissey, and Conservative candidate Logan McLellan were within 100 votes of each other for most of the first hour of results coming in from Elections Canada.

McLellan even held a slim lead at one point, and the men were tied at another, but Morrissey finally pulled ahead to win by almost 2,000 votes. 

Desserud was particularly surprised by how tight that race was, given Egmont was the only riding where the Conservatives did not run a former provincial Progressive Conservative cabinet minister. McLellan is a business owner born and raised in Summerside.

"That was the one that I had the least sense of; I just truly didn't know," Desserud said. "Obviously the Conservative candidate in that riding had a good campaign and did very, very well, but maybe did not have the profile that we saw in the other ridings."

Cardigan

Things were less close down east in Cardigan — a Liberal stronghold for more than 35 years under Lawrence MacAulay, who did not reoffer in this election after 11 straight wins. 

Stepping in as a first-time candidate in MacAulay's stead was Kent MacDonald, described on the Liberal website as "a seventh-generation dairy farmer from Little Pond, P.E.I." He faced a challenge from former provincial PC cabinet minister and leader James Aylward. 

"I was never sure… whether in that riding if people were voting for Lawrence MacAulay or voting for a Liberal," Desserud said.

"The one thing I'd wondered about was whether Aylward's base in Stratford would translate to the rest of the riding, particularly as you get further east, and perhaps it did not." 

Charlottetown and Malpeque

Things didn't swing as dramatically in the Island's urban and central ridings. 

Liberal Heath MacDonald held Malpeque over another former PC minister, Jamie Fox.

In Charlottetown, Sean Casey defeated Natalie Jameson, who stepped down from her post as P.E.I.'s education minister earlier this year to run federally. 

When the Conservatives were favoured in the polls, Desserud said that appeared to boost both Jameson and Fox — particularly when Carney didn't name any cabinet ministers from P.E.I. after he was sworn in as prime minister last month. 

"It was not that long ago that both those Conservative candidates were seen as the favourites," Desserud said. "Now we see it went back to a more traditional vote, but I'd be willing to bet that all eyes are going to be on the next cabinet and seeing who's going to get the nod."

Other parties

Of course, the surge in votes for both the Liberals and Conservatives came at the expense of parties like the Greens and NDP. 

On P.E.I., the NDP had garnered 2.55 per cent by 1:30 a.m. AT on Tuesday and the Greens had 2.22 per cent.  

Desserud expects the New Democrats in particular to rethink their priorities after this election, which led to Leader Jagmeet Singh announcing his resignation early Tuesday morning. 

"This is the typical cycle of our system," he said. "It's one of the problems… of the first-past-the-post system where smaller parties like the NDP, like the Greens can do well up to a certain point but can get pushed back down to the smaller numbers and have to start over again."