Election day dawns in New Brunswick | CBC News
New Brunswick
The polls open at 10 a.m. and CBC News will have live coverage of the results across all of its platforms.
Jacques Poitras · CBC News
· Posted: Oct 21, 2024 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 hours ago
It's election day in New Brunswick.
Voters in the province have until 8 p.m. to cast their ballots to help determine which party will govern — and whether it will have a majority in the legislature.
Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs is hoping to win a third term in office, which would make him the first premier to pull that off since Liberal Frank McKenna's victory in 1995.
Higgs has promised to continue the same approach to governing he has used for the last six years, which has led to six consecutive budget surpluses.
WATCH | Voting in New Brunswick explained:
Unsure about the voting process in N.B? Here’s what you need to know
He made only one major promise during the campaign: a two-point reduction to the 15-per-cent harmonized sales tax rate, phased in over the next two years.
Liberal Leader Susan Holt hopes to lead her party back to power after six years on the opposition benches.
She built her campaign around a commitment to address problems in the health-care system and help New Brunswickers with the high cost of living.
And the Green Party, seemingly entrenched as the province's third party on the left of the political spectrum, aims to re-elect its three MLAs who first won in 2018 and secured new terms in 2020.
The NDP, the People's Alliance and the Libertarian parties also have candidates on the ballot in some ridings. Two other parties, the Social Justice Party and the Consensus Party, failed to nominate enough candidates to remain officially registered.
WATCH | Ridings to watch in N.B. this election:
New Brunswick votes: Key ridings explained
There were more than 574,000 New Brunswickers on the list of eligible voters as of Friday afternoon.
Voter turnout in the last two elections was between 66 and 67 per cent.
The polls open at 10 a.m. and close at 8 p.m., and CBC News will have live coverage of the results across all of its platforms.
For complete campaign coverage, visit New Brunswick Votes 2024.
Jacques Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He grew up in Moncton and covered Parliament in Ottawa for the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. He has reported on every New Brunswick election since 1995 and won awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the National Newspaper Awards and Amnesty International. He is also the author of five non-fiction books about New Brunswick politics and history.
