NDP, Liberals split St. John's seats
No longer a safe haven for federal Conservatives, St. John's voters picked a New Democrat and a Liberal to represent them in the next Parliament.
NDP candidate Jack Harris, a former provincial leader and a former MP, took St. John's East in a landslide, winning three out of every four votes cast.
The race was much more competitive in St. John's South-Mount Pearl, where Liberal Siobhan Coady — the runner-up in the riding in the preceding two elections — defeated New Democrat Ryan Cleary in a seesaw race.
Harris said the "Anything But Conservative" campaign waged by Premier Danny Williams provided a boost, but said its effect was not as significant as many believed. Harris said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, not Williams, influenced many voters' decisions.
"The voters of St. John's East made up their minds a long time ago that they weren't voting for Stephen Harper or his candidates," Harris said at a celebration party following his win.
"That was something that happened, I think, probably before the ABC was mentioned."
In Avalon, the third seat on the Avalon Peninsula, Tory incumbent Fabian Manning went down to a crushing defeat against Liberal Scott Andrews, a town councillor in Conception Bay South.
The Tories have historically claimed both St. John's seats as their own, despite sporadic breaks over the years.
St. John's East had been held since 1997 by retiring MP Norm Doyle. Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, who also decided to not run again, had represented St. John's South-Mount Pearl since 2000.
But this year's campaign was markedly different, largely because of the ABC campaign that Williams launched well before the election was even called.
Williams, a Progressive Conservative, fell out with Harper, accusing the Conservative leader of having broken a written election promise to leave offshore oil revenues out of the federal equalization formula.
With some Williams government members campaigning for Liberal and NDP candidates, the ABC campaign had an undeniable effect on the Conservatives. In St. John's East, for instance, candidate Craig Westcott placed third, taking just over nine per cent of the vote.
"It's been a very tough campaign," Leo Power, a chief organizer of the Conservative campaign in the province, acknowledged early in the evening.
Manning, Westcott and Merv Wiseman, the Conservative candidate in St. John's South-Mount Pearl, all alleged there had been intimidation during the campaign.
Williams and other provincial Progressive Conservatives vigorously denied the allegations.
But Power, who has worked on federal and provincial campaigns for more than two decades, said many volunteers stayed home for fear of reprisal.
"I think there's been some element of fear. I don't want to overblow it … [but] it's been unprecedented in this campaign," he said.
"We've had a full course of the ABC against us."