Brandon voters feeling blue

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This article was published 20/04/2016 (3487 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — The winds of change have swept through Brandon East.

Progressive Conservative candidate Len Isleifson ended the NDP’s reign in the riding with a victory over incumbent candidate Drew Caldwell.

Caldwell had held a seat in the Manitoba legislature since 1999.

It also end nearly half a century of NDP power in the riding.

“Some people say this was a 34-day campaign — it wasn’t. We started last June when we started building our roots because we knew that Brandon East wanted a change,” said Isleifson, flanked by his wife, Chris, and his daughter, Natasha, at his party headquarters.

Isleifson led the polls all evening, and with 49 of 56 polls reporting by press time, he had 3,046 votes compared with Caldwell’s 2,114. Liberal candidate Vanessa Hamilton trailed far behind with 720 votes.

“It feels really good. I ran municipally before and I won by one vote, so to win by this many it just shows that the platform the party has (and) my ideas that I bring to the table… go a long way,” Isleifson said.

Since the riding was created in 1968, it has been held by a New Democrat — the late Len Evans held the seat from 1969 to 1999, followed by Caldwell from 1999 to 2016.

At NDP headquarters, Caldwell was greeted with a round of applause from about 40 people.

“I’m so humbled by the team that came out to work in this election campaign,” Caldwell said. “Everybody who was part of this campaign put their soul into it and their heart into it as we all do in Brandon East.”

Caldwell took a few minutes to speak about his opponent and the PC leader.

“We just elected the most right-wing politician in Canada in this province, a very extreme man,” he said. “In an unprecedented event in Brandon, we elected somebody that didn’t make a single commitment to this community during the campaign.”

Meanwhile, the residents of Brandon West returned Tory candidate Reg Helwer to the legislature with a powerful mandate.

As of press time, Helwer took 67.9 per cent of the vote. His nearly 4,000 ballots were more than double the number of votes for runner-up, NDP candidate Linda Ross.

Liberal parachute candidate Billy Moore earned 483 votes.

In a five-minute speech, Helwer almost teared up as he thanked his family and staffers.

“We will renew our great province,” he promised from the podium.

— Brandon Sun