The Saskatchewan Party won a fifth consecutive majority on October 28, 2024, but with a dramatically reduced margin — 34 seats to the NDP's 27 — after a campaign dominated by healthcare, education, and affordability. Premier Scott Moe called the election on October 1, setting the minimum 27-day campaign period. Turnout was 56.8%, the highest since 2007, with 471,087 ballots cast — the most total votes in a Saskatchewan provincial election since 1991.

The election marked the NDP's strongest result in two decades under new leader Carla Beck, a registered social worker who had taken over the party in June 2022 after Ryan Meili's resignation. The Saskatchewan Party's 17-year hold on power continued, but the loss of 14 seats and five cabinet ministers signalled significant urban erosion and voter frustration with the state of public services.

Results

The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats with 52.3% of the popular vote, down from 48 seats and 60.7% in 2020. The NDP won 27 seats with 40.4%, more than doubling their 2020 caucus of 13 and achieving their best result since 2003. No other party won a seat. The Saskatchewan United Party, positioned to the right of the governing party, won 3.9% of the vote but came nowhere close to winning a seat — including party founder Nadine Wilson, who lost Saskatchewan Rivers back to the Saskatchewan Party.

The urban-rural divide was the starkest in provincial history. The NDP won all 12 Regina seats and won 13 of 14 Saskatoon seats after Saskatoon Westview flipped on the mail-in ballot count — NDP candidate April ChiefCalf overtook the incumbent by 74 votes. The sole Saskatoon holdout for the Saskatchewan Party was Saskatoon Willowgrove, retained by Ken Cheveldayoff by 136 votes. Outside the two major cities, the Saskatchewan Party dominated, winning every rural and small-city seat.

Party Leaders

Scott Moe (Saskatchewan Party) — Moe entered the 2024 election as a seven-year premier, having succeeded Brad Wall in February 2018. A farmer's son from the Shellbrook area with a degree in agriculture from the University of Saskatchewan, he had consolidated the party's rural base while pursuing an increasingly confrontational posture toward Ottawa — including the Saskatchewan First Act, a unilateral halt to carbon tax collection on natural gas, and the creation of the Saskatchewan Marshals Service. He retained his seat of Rosthern-Shellbrook. The fifth consecutive majority extended a streak not seen since Tommy Douglas's CCF won five straight from 1944 to 1960.

Carla Beck (NDP) — Born in Weyburn and raised on a mixed farm near Lang, Beck worked for over 20 years as a registered social worker, including positions at the Regina General Hospital's Women and Children's Team and as assistant executive director of a local women's shelter. She was first elected to the Regina Public School Board in 2009, then won the provincial seat of Regina Lakeview in the 2016 election. She served as Opposition critic for Education and as Deputy Leader before winning the NDP leadership on June 26, 2022, with approximately 70% of the vote, becoming the first elected female leader of the Saskatchewan NDP. Her focus on healthcare, classroom conditions, and kitchen-table affordability resonated strongly in urban Saskatchewan.

Campaign Issues

Healthcare was the dominant issue. Emergency rooms or laboratories had been closed at a minimum of 53 hospitals since Moe became premier, driven by chronic staffing shortages, particularly in rural areas. In early October, just before the election, Saskatoon's Royal University Hospital emergency room was operating at 350% capacity. Polling showed 65% of residents rated the government's handling of healthcare as poor. The Saskatchewan Party pledged $2.6 billion over four years for hospital and long-term care construction; the NDP pledged $1.1 billion focused on hiring and retaining 800 front-line health workers.

Education and classroom complexity were front and centre. The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation had been without a contract since August 2023, with rotating strikes beginning in January 2024 and an indefinite work-to-rule in April. The central dispute concerned classroom size and the diversity of student needs. Both parties promised major education spending — the Saskatchewan Party pledged $156 million for infrastructure and $336 million on classroom sizes, while the NDP pledged to increase the education budget by $2 billion over four years.

Cost of living was a top concern, with 62% of residents rating the government's handling of affordability as poor. The Saskatchewan Party promised income tax cuts saving a family of four an estimated $3,400 over four years. The NDP promised to cut the gas tax, remove the PST from groceries and children's clothing, introduce rent controls, and create a school lunch program.

The Parents' Bill of Rights, passed in October 2023 with the notwithstanding clause, required parental consent for students under 16 to change preferred names or pronouns at school. The policy animated parts of the Saskatchewan Party's rural base while drawing criticism from educators and the NDP.

Notable Outcomes

Five Saskatchewan Party cabinet ministers were defeated: Justice Minister Bronwyn Eyre in Saskatoon Stonebridge, Parks Minister Laura Ross in Regina Rochdale, Social Services Minister Gene Makowsky in Regina University, Environment Minister Christine Tell in Regina Wascana Plains, and former Health Minister Paul Merriman in Saskatoon Silverspring.

The closest race was Saskatoon Westview, where incumbent David Buckingham led by 31 votes on election night before NDP candidate April ChiefCalf overtook him on the mail-in count, winning by 74 votes. The NDP also recaptured Athabasca, the far northern riding whose loss in a 2022 by-election had precipitated Meili's resignation as leader.

The result confirmed a deepening geographic polarization: the two largest cities now almost entirely represented by one party, and rural Saskatchewan almost entirely by the other. For the NDP, the doubling of their caucus validated Beck's leadership and the party's focus on public services and affordability. For the Saskatchewan Party, the loss of urban cabinet ministers and a 14-seat swing underscored that voter frustration over healthcare and education carried real electoral consequences — even as the party's rural base held firm.