Early results pour in for New Brunswick's local government elections

N.B.ers head up to the polls to elite local governments

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There's excitement in the air at Donna Reardon’s watch party with cheers whenever updated results are read to the crowd of roughly 50.  Reardon has a slim lead.

There were cheers here as updated results showed Brian Murphy leading for the first time in Moncton’s mayoral race. 

He walked up to a screen showing results smiling with a few supporters. 

Moments later the results flipped back to Shawn Crossman leading.

I’m here at incumbent Donna Reardon’s watch party at the Union Club in Saint John. Early results have Reardon leading candidate Barry Ogden by a slim margin of 179 votes with 13 out of 54 tabulators reporting.

As initial counts start to fly in, the mayoral race in Fredericton appears quite close — both Atwin and Hicks have led the race. As it stands now at 8:10 p.m., Hicks is leading by about 1,000 votes.

More than 15,000 students vote in mock N.B. Local elections

Over 175 schools registered to participate in New Brunswick’s largest local Student Vote to date, giving students the opportunity to learn about their communities and the candidates who want to serve them.

While the grown ups were out voting today, some kids in New Brunswick also got to try their hand at democracy.

On Friday, 177 New Brunswick schools participated in a student vote program, which held mock elections for students to research and vote.

I’m now downtown at the Moncton Press Club where Brian Murphy and supporters are watching as polls close. 

About two dozen people are here. 

There’s a projector set up showing Elections N.B. Results for Moncton not far from a table covered with boxes of pizza. 

If you feel like you’ve voted a lot recently, you’re probably not alone. This will be the third time New Brunswickers have gone to the polls recently, following the federal election last spring and the 2024 provincial election that saw Premier Susan Holt win.

So, let’s give you a break from voting while we wait for the first results to come in. Here are the places where no voting was required because only one person signed up to run.

Grand Bay-Westfield, Hampton, Hartland, Memramcook, Riverview and Quispamsis are some of the municipalities where mayors were acclaimed. 

And in Fredericton Junction and McAdam, there are no municipal elections tonight — the entire councils, including the mayors, were all acclaimed.

As the clock strikes 8 p.m., most polls across the province have closed (other than those six polling stations open later due to technical issues!). Results will start to come into the Elections New Brunswick website, which will have up-to-date results on every race and we will provide live coverage here. 

Over 1,200 New Brunswickers stepped up to put their name forward on a ballot — be that as candidates for mayor or council as well as on rural districts and district education councils. 

I’m at a legion hall in Moncton’s Sunny Brae neighbourhood where Shawn Crossman and his supporters have gathered to watch the results. 

Crossman, one of four candidates to be Moncton’s mayor, is here chatting with supporters along with his wife and daughter. 

Pizza just arrived and the bar is open as they await the close of polls.

This election campaign took on a sombre mood in two New Brunswick municipalities after two candidates died in recent weeks.

Saint Andrews acting mayor Kate Akagi, who had been running as a councillor in Ward 3 this election, died April 19, and Coun. Greg Smith of Grand Lake, who has been running as a councillor in Ward 2, died May 1.

Under Elections N.B. Rules, the races in both of the deceased candidate’s wards were cancelled, and a byelection for both will be held on June 22. All other elections in Saint Andrews and Grand Lake continued today as normal. 

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