HYPOTHETICAL 2025 NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR PROVINCIAL ELECTION
SCENARIO: What would the result of the 2025 Newfoundland & Labrador Provincial Election look like if the electorate voted exactly like they did during the 2025 Canadian Federal Election?
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POPULAR VOTE
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BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY
STEP 1: Grouping of Provincial Districts into their federal counterparts.
This isn't perfect, but is close enough to produce an appropriate result. If the poll-by-poll results of the 2021 provincial election were available, then we could really refine this hypothetical, but I don't think that would change anything.
The districts were grouped together as follows:
ST. JOHN'S METRO REGION: Cape St. Francis, Conception Bay East-Bell Island, Mount Pearl North, Mount Pearl-Southlands, Mount Scio, St. John's Centre, St. John's East-Quidi Vidi, St. John's West, Topsail-Paradise, Virginia Waters-Pleasantville, Waterford Valley, and Windsor Lake.
AVALON: Conception Bay South, Ferryland, Harbour Grace-Port de Grave, Harbour Main, and Placentia-St. Mary's.
CENTRAL NEWFOUNDLAND: Baie Verte-Green Bay, Exploits, Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans, and Lewisporte-Twillingate.
LONG RANGE MOUNTAINS: Burgeo-La Poile, Corner Brook, Humber-Gros Morne, Humber-Bay of Islands, St. Barbe-L'Anse aux Meadows, St. George's-Humber, and Stephenville-Port au Port.
LABRADOR: Cartright-L'Anse au Clair, Labrador West, Lake Melville, and Torngat Mountains.
TERRA NOVA-THE PENINSULAS: Bonavista, Burin-Grand Bank, Carbonear-Trinity-Bay de Verte, Fogo Island-Cape Freels, Placentia West-Bellevue, and Terra Nova.
STEP 2: Calculating the 2021 Provincial Election results for each federal district
Vote totals for each of the 6 above new federal districts were determined. Vote totals for each provincial district were summed to give us a hypothetical result for the 2021 election election if it were held under the above-defined federal boundaries.
This isn't perfect, but is close enough to produce an appropriate result. If the poll-by-poll results of the 2021 provincial election were available, then we could really refine this hypothetical, but I don't think that would change anything.
The districts were grouped together as follows:
ST. JOHN'S METRO REGION: Cape St. Francis, Conception Bay East-Bell Island, Mount Pearl North, Mount Pearl-Southlands, Mount Scio, St. John's Centre, St. John's East-Quidi Vidi, St. John's West, Topsail-Paradise, Virginia Waters-Pleasantville, Waterford Valley, and Windsor Lake.
AVALON: Conception Bay South, Ferryland, Harbour Grace-Port de Grave, Harbour Main, and Placentia-St. Mary's.
CENTRAL NEWFOUNDLAND: Baie Verte-Green Bay, Exploits, Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans, and Lewisporte-Twillingate.
LONG RANGE MOUNTAINS: Burgeo-La Poile, Corner Brook, Humber-Gros Morne, Humber-Bay of Islands, St. Barbe-L'Anse aux Meadows, St. George's-Humber, and Stephenville-Port au Port.
LABRADOR: Cartright-L'Anse au Clair, Labrador West, Lake Melville, and Torngat Mountains.
TERRA NOVA-THE PENINSULAS: Bonavista, Burin-Grand Bank, Carbonear-Trinity-Bay de Verte, Fogo Island-Cape Freels, Placentia West-Bellevue, and Terra Nova.
STEP 2: Calculating the 2021 Provincial Election results for each federal district
Vote totals for each of the 6 above new federal districts were determined. Vote totals for each provincial district were summed to give us a hypothetical result for the 2021 election election if it were held under the above-defined federal boundaries.
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A few things to note:
- St. John's Metro combines the results of Cape Spear and St. John's East.
- There was a huge bump in Liberal support on the Avalon Peninsula (Avalon and St. John's Metro) between the 2021 provincial election and the 2025 Federal election. Likewise, there was a massive collapse in NDP support in the St. John's Metro region.
- The hypothetical 2021 provincial results for Central Newfoundland and Terra Nova-The Peninsulas is shockingly close to how the 2025 federal election results played out, ESPECIALLY for Terra Nova-The Peninsulas. Projecting this out before the federal election would have given us a pretty close prediction for how these federal districts would have voted in the past federal election.
- Big changes for Labrador and Long Range Mountains; in Labrador the NDP vote would have all gone to the CPC in this scenario, while in Long Range Mountains it was a pretty close to clean swap between the Liberals and CPC.
STEP 3: CALCULATE PERCENT CHANGE BETWEEN 2021 AND 2025, AND APPLY PERCENT CHANGE BACK TO EACH PROVINCIAL DISTRICT
Percent change for each party, in each hypothetical federal district, was calculated. These values were then applied back onto the corresponding votes in each provincial district, using their 2021 results. As example, as Burgeo-La Poile was grouped into the Long Range Mountains district, the percent change between 2021 and 2025 from the tables above were used on the 2021 Burgeo-La Poile election results.
LIBERAL= [(# OF LIB VOTES IN BURGEO-LAPOILE IN 21)*(LIB VOTE PERCENT CHANGE)]+(# OF LIB VOTES IN BURGEO-LAPOILE IN 21)
= [(1992 VOTES)(-0.184)]+(1992 VOTES)
= 1625 VOTES in hypothetical election
PC= [(# OF PC VOTES IN BURGEO-LAPOILE IN 21)*(PC VOTE PERCENT CHANGE)]+(# OF PC VOTES IN BURGEO-LAPOILE IN 21)
= [(235 VOTES)(0.455)]+(235 VOTES)
= 342 VOTES in hypothetical election
RESULTS ANALYSIS
I think conservatives may have been looking at the Federal Election results in rural Newfoundland thinking that such a major shift rightward in the rural parts of the province could bleed over into the fall provincial election, gifting the Progressive Conservatives a victory that many may not be predicting.
The problem as we've uncovered in this exercise is that the Federal Election result was already anticipated by the 2021 provincial election (and subsequent by-elections). The Federal Election results were in fact lagging behind what we've already seen provincially. This isn't true for all parts of rural Newfoundland though, as the west coast and Labrador have clearly shifted post 2021 provincial election, and the hypothetical results seen above mirror that; the PC's are picking up seats on the west coast and Labrador. However, the bulk of the rural parts of the islands 2021 provincial results were not that far off from what we just saw federally, and I wouldn't expect much more of a shift in the fall.
What others may have failed to pick up on election night in 2025 was exactly how much the Liberal vote share grew in St. John's and other parts of the Avalon Peninsula. A lot of that has to do with a collapsing NDP, but a mirroring of the federal results provincially spells disaster for the Progressive Conservatives on the Avalon Peninsula. The St. John's suburbs have long been a stronghold for the PC party, one which the Liberals have been slowly but surely chipping away at over the past 5 years. Without these regions of support, the PC party is absolutely dead in the water, with zero chance at forming government. The provincial Liberals have done a very good job growing a strong base of support in St. John's, once a place where PC blue reigned supreme. As they slowly expand outwards, enjoying pickups such as Mount Pearl North and Conception Bay East-Bell Island, you have to think the Liberals are eyeing districts like Topsail-Paradise and Conception Bay South thinking they have a chance at the upset.
If the Federal Election results are any indication of the strength of the Liberal party on the Avalon Peninsula, then it's already game, set, and match on the provincial election.