Shawn Graham - Toward The 2003 Election

Toward The 2003 Election

As leader, Graham was considered a lightweight by pundits and by the governing Progressive Conservative Party, and few gave him a chance in the coming election. Although Graham's Liberal Party of New Brunswick and the PCs were near each other in the polls, Graham was a relative unknown and trailed Premier Bernard Lord by significant margins when people were asked "who would you rather as premier?".

Graham surprised pundits again during the 2003 election, running an energetic campaign and winning 26 of 55 seats, just two short of the Conservatives, and coming within 1% of the Conservatives in the popular vote. Pundits said Graham and Lord had fought the English language debate to a draw, while they viewed Graham as the winner of the French debate; this was despite the fact that Lord was a francophone and that Graham's less than stellar command of French was viewed as one of his largest liabilities. Moreover, it was universally agreed by the punditry that the Liberals had controlled the agenda of the campaign, always keeping their three key issues: public automobile insurance, public health care and public power in the forefront of the agenda.

Graham often cited the fact that had 10 votes swung from the Conservatives to the Liberals in the riding of Kennebecasis there would have been a 27-27 tie which may have led to a Liberal minority government supported by the New Democrats whose one member would have held the balance of power. Graham was quoted on election night saying "until five minutes ago, I thought I was going to be premier".