The 2018 Quebec general election was held on October 1, 2018, to elect members to the National Assembly of Quebec. The election saw a landslide victory for the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) led by François Legault, which won 74 of 125 seats, giving the party a majority and unseating the Quebec Liberal Party. The Liberals became the official opposition with 31 seats.

This election was the first won by the CAQ, which had previously been the third party in the legislature. It was also the first since 1966 that had been won by a party other than the Liberals or Parti Québécois.

Background

In Quebec the Liberal Party had held power since 2003, save for a period of less than two years between 2012 and 2014.

The National Assembly has had a fixed four-year term since passing a fixed election date law in 2013. The law stipulates that "the general election following the end of a Legislature shall be held on the first Monday of October of the fourth calendar year following the year that includes the last day of the previous Legislature", setting the date for October 1, 2018. However, the Chief Electoral Officer could have changed the election date in the event of a natural disaster. Furthermore, the Lieutenant Governor could have called an election sooner should the Premier have requested one, or in the event the government had been dissolved by a motion of no confidence.

Redistribution of ridings

The Commission de la représentation électorale performed a redistribution in 2017, which maintained the number of seats in the National Assembly at 125 for the next general election, making the following alterations:

Timeline

Party standings

Seat changes (2014–2017)

Other developments

Incumbents not running for reelection

As of September 5, 2018, a total of 45 MNAs elected in 2014 will not run in the 2018 election, of whom 12 resigned from the National Assembly, one died in office and 32 announced that they will not seek re-election including one whose riding was dissolved, and one who got fired. The latter comprise the following:

At the end of his term, Gendron, Dean of the National Assembly, will have served for 41 years and 10 months, representing Abitibi-Ouest for 11 terms.

Campaign

Slogans

Issues

The election was believed to be the first in almost half a century that had not been fought on the issue of whether Quebec should stay in Canada. The PQ had promised not to hold another referendum on sovereignty until 2022 at the earliest had it won.

Opinion polls

The CAQ’s landslide victory was, in part, surprising due to the close outcome that was projected by opinion polls during the campaigning period. Although polls estimated a difference of approximately 2% between the PLQ and the CAQ in the days leading up to the election, the results showed a 12.6% gap in voting. Studies suggest that this outcome is the result of an ongoing reconfiguration in Quebec’s electoral system that is shifting from a two-party to a multi-party system, as the vote share for the QLP and the PQ had been on the decline since 2007. Additionally, the question of sovereignty, which had previously been a reliable indicator of voting choice was replaced by other matters such as identity, immigration, redistribution, and the environment. Research indicates that the polls may have been misled by this change in focus combined with last-minute moves toward the CAQ and the tendency of those who did not disclose their vote to disproportionately vote for the same party. The topic of identity appeared extremely important and was mobilized throughout individuals’ participation with the election campaigns. These findings suggest that the CAQ’s shocking victory was the result of longstanding trends toward a multi-party system and a diversified agenda of topics which were not accurately predicted by the polls.

Candidates

• This table lists the names of the registered candidates as they appear on the official list published by the Chief Electoral Officer. The symbol ‡ indicates incumbent members not running for re-election.
• Abbreviations used in the table: Auto.: Équipe autonomiste. BP: Bloc pot. CAP: Citoyens au pouvoir du Québec. CAQ: Coalition avenir Québec - L'équipe François Legault. CINQ: Changement intégrité pour notre Québec. Conservative or Cons.: Conservative Party of Québec. Cul.: Parti culinaire du Québec. Green: Green Party of Québec. Ind.: Independent candidate. Liberal: Quebec Liberal Party. Marxist–Leninist or ML: Parti marxiste-léniniste du Québec. NDP: Nouveau Parti démocratique du Québec. Nul: Parti nul. PL: Parti libre. PQ: Parti québécois. Prov.: Alliance provinciale du Québec. P51: Parti 51. QS: Québec solidaire. VP: Voie du peuple.
• In this list, electoral districts are grouped by administrative region and regions are listed in the order of their administrative number. (However, some sections of the list group two regions that comprise a small number of districts.) Maps of the regions and the districts they include can be consulted at Élections Quebec.

Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine

Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Côte-Nord and Nord-du-Québec

Capitale-Nationale

Mauricie

Estrie

Montréal

East

West

Outaouais and Abitibi-Témiscamingue

Chaudière-Appalaches

Centre-du-Québec

Laval

Lanaudière

Laurentides

Montérégie

Eastern

South Shore

Results

The CAQ went into the election as the third party in the legislature, but won a decisive victory with 74 seats, exceeding all published opinion polling. The Liberals won 31 seats, while Québec solidaire and the Parti Québécois each won 10 seats. This is the second election in a row in which a government has been defeated after only one term.

The CAQ formed government for the first time, mainly by dominating its traditional heartlands of Capitale-Nationale, Chaudière-Appalaches and Centre-du-Québec, while winning sweeps or near-sweeps in Mauricie, Estrie, Lanaudière, Montérégie, the Laurentides and northern Quebec. Many of their gains came at the expense of the PQ. The CAQ took a number of seats that had been in PQ hands for four decades or more, in some cases by landslide margins. It did, however, win only two seats in Montreal.

The Parti Québécois came up two seats short of official status in the legislature. Notably, it was completely shut out in Montreal for the first time in decades; indeed, it won only one seat (Marie-Victorin in Longueuil) in the entire Greater Montreal area. It was easily the PQ's worst showing in a provincial election in 45 years. For the second election in a row, its leader was unseated in his own riding. According to a postmortem by The Globe and Mail, the PQ was so decisively beaten that there were already questions about whether it could survive. Echoing this, Christian Bourque of Montreal-based pollster Léger Marketing told The Guardian that he believed the PQ was likely finished in its present form, and would have to merge with another sovereigntist party to avoid fading into irrelevance.

The election was viewed as the Liberals' worst defeat since the 1976 election. While the party more than held its own in Montreal (where it won 19 out of 27 seats) and Laval (where it retained all but one seat), it only won seven seats elsewhere.

This was the first election in which Québec Solidaire won seats outside Montreal, taking one seat from the PQ and three from the Liberals.

The CAQ won 37.4 percent of the popular vote, a smaller vote share than the Liberals' 41 percent in 2014 and the lowest vote share on record for a party winning a majority government. However, due to the nature of the first-past-the-post system, which awards power solely on the basis of seats won, the CAQ's heavy concentration of support in the regions they dominated was enough for a strong majority of 11 seats. Quebec elections have historically seen large disparities between the raw vote and the actual seat count.

Following the elections, both Jean-François Lisée and Philippe Couillard resigned.

Summary analysis

Synopsis of riding results

  = open seat

  = turnout is above provincial average

  = winning candidate was in previous Legislature

  = incumbent had switched allegiance

  = previously incumbent in another riding

  = not incumbent; was previously elected to the Legislature

  = incumbency arose from byelection gain

  = other incumbents renominated

  = previously an MP in the House of Commons of Canada

  = multiple candidates

See also

• 41st Quebec Legislature
• Politics of Quebec
• Timeline of Quebec history
• List of political parties in Quebec

Notes

References

Further reading

• Bélanger, Éric; Chassé, Philippe (September 2021). "The 2018 Provincial Election in Quebec". Canadian Political Science Review. 15 (1): 34–43. ISSN 1911-4125.

External links

• Web site of Quebec's Chief Electoral Officer

Articles connexes

1. 2022 Quebec general election
2. Opinion polling for the 2018 Quebec general election
3. 2014 Quebec general election
4. 1890 Quebec general election
5. 2012 Quebec general election
6. List of Quebec general elections
7. Quebec
8. Politics of Quebec
9. 2020 Quebec Liberal Party leadership election
10. 45th Canadian federal election
11. Coalition Avenir Québec
12. History of Quebec
13. Conservative Party of Quebec
14. List of elections in 2018
15. Québec solidaire
16. Free Party Canada
17. 2019 Canadian federal election
18. 2025 Quebec Liberal Party leadership election
19. National Assembly of Quebec
20. Philippe Couillard