After months of campaigning and 28 days after the writ was dropped, the results of the 2024 Saskatchewan provincial election are in.
The Saskatchewan Party will be returning to government with a slightly smaller mandate. When the counting was done Monday night, they were leading in 35 of the 61 seats and captured just slightly more than half of the popular vote. The 35 seats are the fewest captured by the Saskatchewan Party since the 2003 election when they won 28.
The win is the Saskatchewan Party's fifth consecutive general election victory, something Scott Moe acknowledged when speaking to supporters at his campaign headquarters.
"That hasn't happened very many times in Saskatchewan," Moe stated. "In fact, it has happened three times, and it hasn't happened since 1960. It's also not lost on me the message that has been sent this evening to our government, to this fifth term government. There is a message that has been sent, and I'd say that that message has been received."
The number of seats, however, could change, as there were a few tight races, and mail-in ballots won’t be counted until Wednesday. Some of the ridings where the difference in votes was smaller than the number of mail-in ballots to be counted include Prince Albert Northcote, where Saskatchewan Party incumbent Alana Ross was up by 125 votes, but there are 197 mail-in ballots to be counted.
The NDP won all of the seats in Regina and all but two in Saskatoon. The NDP did fail to win any of the rural seats outside of the northern ridings of Athanasca and Cumberland. However, they did improve the percentage of votes they received in many of those ridings.
Moe did acknowledge this difference in where the parties won their seats during his speech.
"Now, some may allude to tonight's results as it means that we are divided in this province, and I would disagree with that," Moe said. "Because I know, regardless of who you voted for in this election, you did so because you wanted what was best for the province that we know, love, and live in, and in this, I would say each of us is united."
Incumbents re-elected, and some new faces
Moe retained his seat in Rosthern-Shellbrook, and NDP leader Carla Beck retained her seat in the riding of Regina Lakeview. Sask United leader Jon Hromek failed to win his seat of Lumsden-Morse. Buffalo Party leader Phil Zajac, Green Party leader Naomi Hunter, and Progressive Conservative leader Rose Buscholl also failed to win their seats.
There were a few surprises, with several Saskatchewan Party incumbents in Regina and Saskatoon being defeated. Christine Tell, Gene Makowsky, and Muhammad Fiaz all lost their re-election bids in Regina or were trailing at the end of the night, while in Saskatoon Lisa Lambert, Paul Merriman, and Bronwyn Eyre were all defeated or trailing in the count of votes from advance polls and election day. The Sask Party incumbent for Athabasca, Jim Lemaigre, was also defeated.
One other notable incumbent who was not re-elected was the Sask United Party’s lone MLA heading into the election, Nadine Wilson. She was defeated by the Saskatchewan Party’s Eric Schmalz.
All of the NDP incumbents who were running in the election were re-elected or were leading when all of the votes from the advance polls and Monday’s voting were counted.
The next preliminary count of the ballots will take place on October 30th. This will include the mail-in ballots that were received by October 26th. From there, they will conduct the final count on November 9th, which will include the mail-in ballots received between October 27th and November 7th, and the election results will officially be certified.