Prince Edward Island Election
Progressive Conservatives with a comfortable lead going into election day, ridings to watch, and more!
Quick Background
PEI has 27 seats up for election. In the previous election in 2019, the Progressive Conservatives (PC) won a minority with 13 seats (36.7% of the vote), while the Greens and Liberals picked up 8 (30.6%) and 6 (29.4%) seats, respectively.
However, after the 2020 by-election in Charlottetown-Winsloe the PC’s picked up the seat from the Liberals and inched their way into a majority government. The PC’s also picked up a 15th seat as a result of the 2021 Cornwall-Meadowbank by-election.
Early Starts
Islanders weren’t expecting to go to the polls quite so early this year, with the original election date scheduled for October 2nd. But with the incumbent PC’s filling their candidate slate ahead of the other parties, PC leader Dennis King pulled the legs out from under the opposition parties and sent Islanders into an early election.
Only the PC’s and NDP were able to secure a full slate of candidates, while the Greens and Liberals both managed to field candidates in 25 of the 27 ridings.
Islanders are set to go to the polls on Monday, April 3rd. So where do the polls have the parties ahead of Monday’s vote?
Prolonged Leads, Battle For Opposition
The PC’s have held substantial leads over their opponents, primarily the Greens and Liberals, since the end of the previous election.
Unfortunately, given PEI is the smallest province in the country, we are left with few pollsters willing to hang their hats on this election. Luckily, Mainstreet Research and Narrative Research have been kind enough to provide the public with insights into the PEI election as we reach the final days. So what are they telling us?
Both pollsters tell us that King’s PC’s are well on their way to a majority government.
Mainstreet’s final poll has the PC’s capturing 50% of the vote while the Liberals and Greens both sit at 22% and the NDP at 5%.
Narrative’s poll (Which was finished at the start of the election) shows a similar picture as Mainstreet’s final poll with the PC’s sitting at 49% while the Greens, Liberals and NDP sit at 22%, 19% and 9%, respectively.
Amidst the PC’s lead, the Greens and Liberals are set to battle it out for Official Opposition. But, if Cameron’s closing statement indicates how the Liberals view their chances, it’s safe to say the Greens are set to remain in Official Opposition. With how many seats? That’s yet to be seen.
If the numbers are accurate to what we’ll see on election night, then this election seems to have been pretty stagnant. The PC’s entered this election with a wide lead in the polls which could have been a deciding factor in calling the election early. With worries of an economic recession lurking around every corner lately, why would the PC’s wait until fall, when we could be in an official recession, before heading to the polls?
Go while the economy still looks good, as the advice always goes.
Where Are The Leaders Running?
PC Leader, Dennis King, is running in Brackley-Hunter River, a riding he won 41.8% of the vote in during the previous election.
NDP leader, Michelle Neill, is running in Charlottetown-Brighton which Green MLA Ole Hammarlund previously held. Hammarlund lost the nomination contest to the current Green candidate in the riding, Janice Harper. The Greens won this riding last election with 40.7% of the vote with the Liberals close behind at 37.9%. The NDP came fourth with just shy of 4%.
Where it gets interesting is New Haven-Rocky Point (Indicated by yellow below) due to both the Green leader, Peter Bevan-Baker, and the Liberal leader, Sharon Cameron, running for the seat. It’s an uphill battle for Cameron however as Bevan-Baker is the incumbent for the riding after winning 53.7% of the vote in 2019. The Liberals came third in the last election with 14.8% of the vote.
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Ridings To Watch
Here are some of the interesting races to watch on election night!
New Haven-Rocky Point (Liberal/Green leaders running here)
Evangeline-Miscouche (Once the safest Liberal seat, incumbent retiring)
Charlottetown-Brighton (NDP Leader running - Close Liberal/Green race previously)
Charlottetown-Belvedere (Second Green elected on the island is retiring)
Charlottetown-West Royalty (Only Liberal MLA outside Prince County)
O’Leary-Inverness (NDP seat to watch, Herb Dickieson is returning after getting 33.2% for the NDP in 2019)
Why Haven’t We Gotten Many Polls or Projections For PEI?
The answer is quite simple, PEI is small. Like really small.
There’s around 157,000 people who live on the island, with a smaller proportion eligble to vote in the election Monday.
Pollsters and modellers alike are afraid of one thing when it comes to elections in PEI: Local factors.
Because ridings in PEI are as small as they are, local issues and well-known local candidates can easily swing riding results one way or another in opposition to province-wide polls. As a result, modellers have a hard time accurately pinning down where they and their models believe seats will go.
In a similar vein, pollsters who poll the island are putting themselves up for undue scrutiny should their poll results be wildly different than the results of the election. On top of that, polling in PEI leads to small sample sizes and small sample sizes have a tendency to have wide margin of errors. It’s hard to poll an island as small and connected as PEI and, famously, elections are known to swing voter’s opinions in a very short time!
If anything, it’s commendable that Mainstreet and Narrative have been willing to poll the island at all, even if we only got three polls total this election.
When Can We Expect Results?
Election day is Monday April 3rd and polls are open from 9AM AT (8 ET) and close at 7PM AT (6ET).
As always, I’ll be reporting the results on Twitter so stay tuned!