Premier Dwight Ball dropped the writ on April 17, 2019, launching a 29-day campaign for the 50th general election, with voting day set for May 16. Ball's Liberals were seeking a second mandate after winning a commanding 31-seat majority in 2015, but their first term had been defined by a punishing 2016 austerity budget, caucus turmoil, and the ever-mounting costs of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project. Approximately 214,800 ballots were cast, representing a turnout of about 60.7% — up from approximately 55% in 2015 but still reflecting widespread economic pessimism.

Results

The Liberals were reduced to exactly 20 seats with 42.0% of the popular vote — the bare minimum in the 40-seat House, and technically a minority government, the province's first since 1971. The PCs surged from 7 seats to 15 with 41.8%, an increase of 8 seats, missing a popular-vote plurality by just 0.2 percentage points. The NDP won three seats with 8.5%, up one from 2015, and two independents were elected.

The result hinged on razor-thin margins. In Labrador West, NDP newcomer Jordan Brown defeated Liberal cabinet minister Graham Letto by 5 votes on election night — reduced to 2 after a judicial recount. Had Letto held the seat, the Liberals would have had 21 seats and a clear majority. In Stephenville-Port au Port, PC candidate Tony Wakeham unseated the Liberal incumbent by just 31 votes. The last riding to report was Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans, where Liberal cabinet minister Al Hawkins was defeated — another seat that would have given Ball his majority.

The PCs swept the Avalon Peninsula suburbs and made deep gains in central Newfoundland, while the Liberals clung to the Northern Peninsula, parts of the west coast, rural outports, and portions of Labrador.

Party Leaders

Dwight Ball (Liberal) survived, but barely. Born December 21, 1957, in Deer Lake to a family rooted in the forest industry, Ball trained as a pharmacist and built a business career that included franchising pharmacies and operating a personal-care home for seniors in Deer Lake. He served as president of the Canadian Pharmacists' Association and received the Bowl of Hygeia Award for community pharmacy work. He won the Liberal leadership in November 2013 on the third ballot with 59% of weighted votes and led the party to a landslide 31-seat majority in 2015, becoming the 13th premier. But his government's 2016 budget — which raised the HST from 13% to 15%, hiked income taxes, increased the gas tax by 16.5 cents per litre, and introduced a deeply unpopular Deficit Reduction Levy — provoked thousands of protesters to march on Confederation Building. He spent the remainder of his term avoiding further controversy, and his 2019 platform largely recycled the proposed budget announced one day before the election call. He was re-elected in Humber-Gros Morne but resigned as Liberal leader and premier in February 2020.

Ches Crosbie (PC) mounted an aggressive first campaign as leader, seeking to channel public frustration with the Ball government while distancing his party from the Muskrat Falls legacy. A prominent class-action litigator, Crosbie won the PC leadership on April 28, 2018, defeating health-care executive Tony Wakeham with approximately 57% of weighted points, and entered the legislature through a by-election in Windsor Lake that September. His $254-million platform promised to balance the budget by 2022-23, championed the offshore oil industry as producing "ethical oil" with significantly lower carbon intensity than the global average, and counted on $135 million annually from the Hibernia dividend agreement. He was re-elected in Windsor Lake but fell well short of the seats needed to form government.

Alison Coffin (NDP) took the party's helm barely ten weeks before election day and delivered its strongest result in years. Born in 1970 in Corner Brook and raised in Joe Batt's Arm on Fogo Island, the daughter of a school principal and a nurse, Coffin studied economics at Memorial University and earned a master's from York University before building a career as an economist, policy consultant, and lecturer at Memorial. She became NDP leader unopposed in March 2019 after the resignation of Gerry Rogers, and despite fielding candidates in only 14 of 40 ridings, won three seats — including her own in St. John's East-Quidi Vidi, the party's traditional stronghold. Jim Dinn captured St. John's Centre for the NDP, and Jordan Brown's 5-vote victory in Labrador West completed the party's best showing in a generation.

Campaign Issues

Muskrat Falls dominated the campaign. The hydroelectric megaproject, sanctioned under the Kathy Dunderdale PC government, had ballooned from an estimated $7.4 billion to approximately $13.5 billion, and without rate mitigation, electricity bills were projected to reach roughly 22.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. Ball ordered a public inquiry in November 2017, and the ongoing hearings served as a constant backdrop to the campaign. The Liberals blamed the PCs for sanctioning the project; Crosbie argued his was a different party under new leadership.

Provincial finances were dire. The 2016 austerity budget remained a scar on public memory, yet neither major party offered a credible plan to address the structural deficit. Oil revenues, which the province depended on heavily, had declined significantly, and the province's debt-to-GDP ratio was the worst in Canada.

Caucus dysfunction cast a shadow over the Liberal campaign. Eddie Joyce, a veteran cabinet minister, had been expelled from the Liberal caucus in April 2018 after a code-of-conduct complaint from fellow MHA Sherry Gambin-Walsh. He was later cleared of most allegations but found to have violated the code by lobbying to have a friend awarded a government job. His entire nine-member district association resigned in protest, and he ran as an independent in Humber-Bay of Islands, declaring: "Dwight Ball, you can dismiss me, but you can't defeat me."

Notable Outcomes

The 2-vote margin in Labrador West was the most dramatic result of the election and arguably the most consequential. Jordan Brown's victory over Liberal cabinet minister Graham Letto — confirmed by judicial recount at 1,364 to 1,362 — was the difference between a Liberal minority and a workable majority. Had Letto held the seat and the similarly close Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans not fallen to the PCs, Ball would have governed with 22 seats and breathing room.

Eddie Joyce's defiant independent victory in Humber-Bay of Islands cost the Liberals another seat from their column. Paul Lane, who had crossed the floor from the PCs to the Liberals and then left the Liberal caucus, also won as an independent in Mount Pearl-Southlands. The two independent victories underscored how internal Liberal turmoil had direct electoral consequences.

Ball emerged from the election weakened, leading a government with no margin for error. He announced his resignation as Liberal leader and premier in February 2020 amid controversy over a sole-source contract awarded by the provincial energy corporation to former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Gordon McIntosh. Andrew Furey won the subsequent leadership race and was sworn in as premier on August 19, 2020, inheriting a province burdened by debt, a troubled megaproject, and a pandemic that would produce one of the most chaotic elections in Canadian history.