Premier Scott Moe will lose the Regina seat he wanted most as mail-in ballots put Aleana Young of the NDP above Saskatchewan Party incumbent Tina Beaudry-Mellor in Regina University. It the second coveted seat the Sask Party has lost to mail-in ballots, which have predominantly gone NDP.
Beaudry-Mellor was leading by 178 votes after the in-person votes were counted on Monday night. Now that 1,371 of the 1,814 mail-in ballots have been counted, Young leads by 226. The remaining 444 votes will be counted November 7 but it is a foregone conclusion Beaudry-Mellor will not close the gap.
The two also faced each other in 2016 where Beaudry-Mellor took 3,418 votes and Young, 3,001.
The upset marks the second time the NDP won a seat on mail-in ballots, as leader Ryan Meili also overcame an 83-vote deficit in Saskatoon Meewasin.
This also marks the second NDP win in an electoral rematch. The NDP’s Jennifer Bowes beat Saskatoon University incumbent Eric Olauson, who himself beat Bowes in 2016.
In a Facebook post, Beaudry-Mellor congratulated Young and reflected on her term in the legislature.
“The first time I sat at a Federal/Provincial/Territorial meeting I nearly crapped myself. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would pass a piece of legislation of my own or ask “what about the victim?” in the Legislative Assembly.”
At a news conference outside of her house, Young thanked her staffers and volunteers and the news was as exciting for them as for her. She was cautious to claim victory.
“I was anticipating, and I still am, that no results are really final until November 7,” she said.
“The trends certainly look like they’re going our way, but I guess we’ve still probably got another week here before anything is final.”
Should nothing else change, the seat total stands at 48 for the Saskatchewan Party and 13 for the NDP. The 13 seats match the NDP’s pre-writ total, as two seats were vacant when the legislature dissolved.
Lee Harding is the Saskatchewan Correspondent for the Western Standard
Lee Harding is the Senior Saskatchewan Contributor for the Western Standard and Saskatchewan Standard based in the Regina Bureau.
He has served as the Saskatchewan Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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