Election live-blogging

(All times NST)

Aw, heck, I just can't resist.

11:02PM - Liberals 24, Conservatives 7, NDP 4, BQ 1. A few results from Central Canada seem to be trickling in already, though CTV hasn't shown them yet.

11:10PM - Yowza. Dennis Mills is ahead of Jack Layton, 39-14. Only one poll, of course.

11:11PM - something we may never, ever ever see again: the Marxist-Leninists are shown leading one riding. (Which means they must have won at least one poll. I'd love to know where that is.)

11:18PM - CTV just said the Marxist-Leninist lead was a computer glitch. Maybe next time, comrades...

11:21PM - there's a long, long way to go in Ontario, but the Liberals are beating the Conservatives 30-8 so far.

11:25PM - Brian Tobin has called a Liberal majority. Not that he's biased or anything. But the Ontario results have been extremely disappointing so far. Yeah, we only had two seats there before tonight, but I figure anything less than 40 is a disappointment.

11:30PM - the polls have now closed all across the country. Barring a series of shocking upsets in B.C. and Alberta, the Conservative should narrow the gap pretty quickly.

11:31PM - am I missing something here, or did CTV just call Medicine Hat for Monte Solberg one minute after the polls closed?

11:35PM - CTV calls a Liberal win. They aren't saying whether it will be a majority or minority, though.

11:39PM - first cabinet minister gone: Stan Keyes has lost his Hamilton seat to the NDP.

11:40PM - Harper is elected.

11:44PM - Carolyn "American bastards" Parrish has been re-elected. A very bad sign.

11:51PM - CTV showed Dennis Mills ahead of Jack Layton by some 400 votes - but Mike Duffy, reporting from Layton HQ, says the NDP numbers show Layton 600 votes ahead.

11:53PM - Tom Wappel has been re-elected. Argh.

11:55PM - CTV calls a Liberal minority. The Conservatives are up to 85, which is more than they had before, with results in 25 ridings still unannounced. Had we been behind throughout the campaign, this would be a great result. But I'm disappointed.

12:01AM - defeated cabinet minister #2: Defence Minister David Pratt falls to a 25 year-old Conservative in Ottawa.

12:08AM - Ed Broadbent has been elected. Jack Layton has pulled ahead of Dennis Mills.

12:09AM - Tony Clement has been defeated - by Baghdad Colleen Beaumier. I need a drink.

12:16AM - The Liberals are at 140, the NDP at 24. As Lloyd Robertson just noted, that's enough for a majority coalition.

Paul Martin, standard-bearer for the "conservative" wing of the Liberal party, may now be beholden to Jack Layton.

12:19AM - Olivia Chow has been defeated. More proof, perhaps, that NDP voters have been flocking to the Liberals to block Harper?

Jack Layton is pulling ahead of Mills. Chuck Cadman is leading as an independent n B.C., and that may as well be considered an extra seat for the Conservatives when this is over.

12:22AM - Lloyd Robertson just got caught eating banana bread when CTV cut back to the studio early.

12:31AM - Dennis Mills just conceded defeat.

12:32AM - as it stands, the Liberals got just over 38% of the popular vote, the Conservatives 29, and the NDP just under 16. The Liberals' late-campaign tactics worked - a lot of New Democrats strategically voted for the Grits, and it looks like most of the undecideds went with "the devil they know".

12:42AM - with results in from every district, it looks like the Conservatives will end up with 90-95 seats, including Chuck Cadman.

Just two or three months ago, if you told me we'd get 90 seats and almost 30% of the vote at election time, driving the seemingly unbeatable Martin Liberals into a minority government, I would have been thrilled. But I'm devastated. If we can't win an election now, when the hell can we win?

That's it for me this evening. More tomorrow.

Posted by damian at June 28, 2004 10:04 PM