HALIFAX — Voters on Canada's East Coast delivered a steady-as-she-goes endorsement to the incumbent Liberals on Monday, April 28, 2025, as the party held on to its commanding position in the region. With 95 percent of the polls in the region reporting, the Liberals, led by novice leader Mark Carney, were elected or leading in 23 of the 32 ridings, while the Conservatives lagged behind at nine. The New Democrats were not in contention, capturing less than five percent of the popular vote.
If those results hold, the Liberals would be down one seat from the election in 2021. The party has dominated the region for nearly a decade, though its grip has slightly loosened since Justin Trudeau first took office in 2015, when the Liberals won all 32 seats.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Tories secured two seats, one of which was taken from the Liberals. Conservative Carol Anstey defeated Liberal Don Bradshaw in the Long Range Mountains riding in western Newfoundland after former Liberal cabinet minister Gudie Hutchings stepped down in January 2025. Tory incumbent Clifford Small held the redrawn riding of Central Newfoundland.
The Conservative campaign message, highlighted by leader Pierre Poilievre's repeated references to a "lost Liberal decade," seemed to resonate in some parts of the region. In the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, Sean Fraser surged to victory after trailing for most of the night; he had initially decided not to run in December 2024 but changed his mind last month after receiving a phone call from Carney.
As he awaited the results, Conservative campaign manager Tyler Cameron noted that residents across the riding expressed their top concerns: U.S. tariffs, affordability, housing, and Nova Scotia’s tumultuous lobster fishery. "Enforcement of the lobster fishery, it is a big issue," Cameron said.
In southwestern Nova Scotia, the Tories lost a tough fight to hold on to South Shore—St. Margarets, a riding Conservative Rick Perkins won in 2021 when he defeated then-fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan. At the time, the Liberals were facing persistent criticism over how they handled ongoing disputes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers. Those disputes have persisted, but Perkins' popularity waned over the past four years, leading to a loss against Liberal Jessica Fancy-Landry, a teacher, principal, and leadership consultant.
In western Nova Scotia, Tory incumbent Chris d'Entremont — a well-known former provincial politician — held on to Acadie-Annapolis, defeating Liberal challenger Ronnie LeBlanc, another former provincial politician and fisherman. In New Brunswick, Tory incumbents maintained three strongholds in the southern and western reaches of the province: Fundy Royal, Saint John-St. Croix, and Tobique-Mactaquac. However, the race was too close to call in Miramichi-Grand Lake, where Conservative incumbent Jake Stewart stepped down last month amid criticism from Tories in his riding.
During the last week of the race, Carney traveled to Upper Onslow, N.S., where he told supporters that Trump was "trying to break us as a nation because they want to own us." He compared the ongoing trade war to a hockey game, saying: "When someone else drops the gloves, we know what to do." Poilievre painted a bleak picture of Canada's future when he stopped in Halifax for a campaign event last week, blaming the situation on nearly 10 years of Liberal government.
The race in Nova Scotia appeared to be particularly favorable for the Liberals, who were close to wiping out the Conservatives, increasing their provincial seat count by three. The Liberals won 10 of the 11 Nova Scotia seats, bolstered by seven incumbents and two newcomers. The party was leading or victorious in 157 seats at press time, needing 172 seats to form a majority.
Kody Blois, who had served as the Atlantic Liberal caucus chairman and was named agriculture minister in Carney’s interim cabinet in March, led the charge, along with former Trudeau cabinet minister Sean Fraser, who was leading Conservative Brycen Jenkins by nearly 3,000 votes in the Central Nova riding.
As the clock ticked past midnight in Nova Scotia, Blois held an 800-vote lead over Joel Hirtle. Blois won the seat in 2019 and 2021, a riding previously held by Liberal Scott Brison for 16 years. Fraser, a former housing and immigration minister in the Trudeau government, stepped away from politics for family reasons early this year but decided to re-enter the race after the March election call.
Liberal Jamie Battiste held a more than 3,000-vote advantage over Conservative Allan MacMaster in the reconfigured seat of Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish. Battiste had previously won the Sydney-Victoria seat in 2019 and 2021. Darren Fisher was on his way to a lopsided 17,000-plus victory over Conservative Isabelle Obeid in the Dartmouth-Cole Harbour riding, marking his fourth consecutive election victory.
Lena Metlege Diab was nearly 10,000 votes up on Conservative Rob Batherson in her bid to retain the Halifax West seat. Shannon Miedema, a newcomer to federal politics and the former climate change director for Halifax Regional Municipality, was leading by more than 15,000 votes against Conservative Mark Boudreau in the Halifax riding.
The Halifax riding had been held by HRM Mayor Andy Fillmore, who left the seat vacant in July 2024 to pursue the mayor's chair. Fillmore had won the seat in 2015, 2019, and 2021, narrowly beating NDP candidate Lisa Roberts in 2021.
Mike Kelloway was leading Conservative Anna Manley by 1,600 votes in the Sydney-Glace Bay riding, while Jessica Fancy-Landry held a 400-vote lead over Conservative incumbent Rick Perkins in South Shore-St. Margarets. Alana Hirtle looked poised for an upset, leading incumbent Stephen Ellis by 350 votes in the Cumberland-Colchester riding.
In Acadie-Annapolis, incumbent Conservative Chris d'Entremont held a 2,700-vote lead over Liberal Ronnie LeBlanc. The Liberals were poised to win 23 or 24 of the 32 seats in Atlantic Canada. "I think we held our ground well in Atlantic Canada," Blois said. "I’m proud of our candidates across this province. We got some great results. Overall, it was a successful night for the Liberal party, especially when you consider that three or four months ago, pundits had us in the graveyard of political parties, let alone forming a government."
The Liberal party won all 11 Nova Scotia seats in the 2015 federal election and retained 10 Nova Scotia seats and 26 of 32 Atlantic seats in the 2019 vote. In the 2021 election, the Liberals took eight of 11 seats in Nova Scotia and 24 of 32 in the Atlantic region.
The configuration of Parliament at dissolution had the Liberals with 152 seats, the Conservatives 120, the Bloc 33, the NDP 24, and the Greens two. There were three independents and four vacant seats. "Obviously we have to see where we end up tonight but the Liberal party is going to form government," Blois said. "We’re in a very critical moment for the country and so I think regardless of what’s going to happen tonight we have to get back to the business of governing, tackling the challenges presented to us in the face of the Trump tariffs while also driving the domestic policy agenda that the prime minister has laid out, which includes building homes that Canadians need at a price they can afford and strengthening our Canadian Armed Forces while protecting the social programs that we should all be proud of."
