10 03 09	binriso 156.34.210.156
Although Saint John and Miramichi are races to watch, Fredericton seems like it will be solidly in the CPC camp. Tough to see any Liberal winning here since the Greens and NDP are fairly strong in the city itself. Probably wont be that close but the CPC are likely not going to be much higher than 42-43%.
	10 01 31	Frederictonian (formerly Haligonian) Political Jun 142.167.189.185
I stated earlier that minus some notable shift in regional and national polling numbers, Fredericton should remain Conservative. It would appear that the recent declining fortunes of the Tories and the slow yet steady increase in Liberal numbers would now push Fredericton back into the ‘Too Close To Call’ camp. The outcome in this riding will depend upon whether Liberals who stayed home in 2008 will come out to vote this time, and where the Green vote goes. The NDP vote will likely hold around its current level, though a push for strategic voting could endanger it. The Green vote, however, will most certainly decline given that Mary Lou Babineau will not be the local candidate this time and that the party in the Maritimes in general is in a somewhat depressed state. Pam Campbell, the Liberal candidate, may also be more appealing to progressive-minded voters in the riding than the previous Liberal candidate, and thus pick off enough NDP votes to defeat Keith Ashfield by a slim margin. If forced to make a call now, I'd say the riding stays Conservative, though by a reduced margin. However, a lot could change during a campaign and a Conservative win is no longer guaranteed.
	10 01 22	Dr Bear & Prof Ape 174.89.196.23
It seems to us that the wise-guys of election-predicting that run the site are caving in to partisan pressue to keep this (and other ridings such as Moncton) listed a win for one party or another. We think this one should be listed as TCTC (with a leaning towards the conservatives). Between '06 and '08, the Liberals lost over 6300 votes and the Conservatives gained about 1650; obviously the Liberals do have a pool in which they could build off of. Still they have a lot of catching up to do and we suspect that much of this added support was support for Andy Scott and not so much for the Liberals. This is a fairly conservative region and we think the CPC will likely keep it. Bottom line though is that with the faultering numbers in the polls they can not rely on anything and many ridings currently listed for them ont his site are very much in-play. Most of the current loss in Tory support has been in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. Added evidence that some of their current holds are vulnerable out east.
	09 11 18	R.O. 24.146.23.226
Current mp Keith Ashfield maintains the advantage here over the liberals and new candidate Pam Campbell . first off it should be noted that although Andy Scott held fredericton from 93 till 06 it historically was not a liberal riding and was in fact a riding with a long progressive conservative history. and he was the only liberal to ever hold this riding in something like the last 40 or so years if not even longer. and the fact that David Innes didn't even bother to try for the nomination again is a clear sign he didn't feel the riding was winnable for the liberals at this time. Keith Ashfield is also minister of state for the atlantic canada oppurtunites agency , a position which is sure to be popular on the east coast. where mp's in government can at times have a significant advantage when there able to deliver funds to there home province and ridings. the only wildcard or thing i'm unsure about in this riding is the incredibly high green vote in 08 and if they could maintain such a level of support in future elections .
	09 10 03	Haligonian Political Junkie 76.11.34.140
My previous post stated that the Conservatives had a slight edge here yet the Liberals stood a chance should they select the right candidate. I now think, however, that incumbent Keith Ashfield will hold onto Fredericton regardless. Only the scale of the margin is uncertain. The Liberals just selected Pam Campbell as their candidate, who would appear to have a decent public profile as a former high school principal, a former New Brunswick Teachers' Association President and a former political volunteer. With her selection, the Liberals seem to be opting for a more centrist strategy, as nomination challenger Wendy Robbins, a retired UNB English literature professor, seemed like someone who would have more of a centre-left appeal that would win over New Democrats and Greens at the expense of winning over defecting Tories. According to The Daily Gleaner, Campbell attacked the Tories at the nomination meeting on post-secondary education, child care and the environment, so it sounds like the Liberals will sprinkle their local campaign with all the appropriate progressive messages. However, I don't think Campbell's candidacy will be enough to defeat Ashfield. First, while most of the 10% Green vote from 2008 is likely up for grabs, I cannot say the same for the NDP vote. They still won 15% with a last minute candidate in 2008, so their vote probably will hold around that level. 15% seems to be the new base for the local NDP. Moreover, larger regional trends suggest that most Atlantic Canadian Conservative incumbents will be safe. Polls are lately putting the Conservatives at or slightly above their 2008 regional levels, while the Liberals are stagnant. Moreover, Fredericton tends to mirror party support trends in Ontario more than Atlantic Canada, and the Tories are performing better in Ontario polls lately. Ashfield's cabinet minister status can't hurt him either, and he does not come across as a scary neo-con but rather as your standard Maritime Red Tory, so he is not exactly the type of person to provoke a united front among local leftists. The Liberals may narrow the gap, but in the absence of some major national or regional shifts in both Liberal and Conservative fortunes, I think Fredericton will remain Conservative.
	09 09 20	Steve Smith 156.34.239.158
Ashfield won handily last time (granted, during the worst Liberal performance in memory) and is now a cabinet minister. While there are plenty of people in this riding chomping at the bit to replace Harper, these are people who didn't vote Conservative last time either.
	09 09 13	Phoenix 99.251.230.35
Fredericton is the center of art, academia, and activism in New Brunswick, which may be why many were surprised at the margin of the Conservative victory here in the last election - and if the riding consisted only of downtown Fredericton and College Hill, I might share in their bewilderment. In reality, Fredericton is a city of white-collar professionals and suburbanites; over 60% of Fredericton's population lives in the city's Northside suburbia - an area that, provincially, actually elected a member from anti-biligual COR party back in the 1990's. And let's not forget that this riding also includes CFB Gagetown and a large part of rural Sunbury county. While the Liberals may be courting a candidate who can woo the more left-leaning demographic of the city, I'm not so sure that's a great idea. Andy Scott, a relative moderate, was the only Liberal to win this riding since the 1950s (and he often did it thanks to some incredible vote-splitting on the right). If the Liberals veer too far to the left with their candidate, many of those moderate Andy Scott/David Innes supporters may bleed to Ashfield. Additionally, the NDP was in utter disarray here in the last election (they didn't even have a candidate until the campaign was well-underway), but they still managed to pull over 6,000 votes, so I'm not sure how deep the reservoir of soft NDP support is; a reservoir from which the Liberals would need to draw if they nominated a more left-leaning candidate. The Green vote is a bit of a wild card, and may be what the Liberals are counting on; but even if every last person who voted Green here in 2008 voted Liberal in this election, the Liberals would still fall short. All things considered, I think that Ashfield will be re-elected. New Brunswick is more fertile turf for Conservatives than other parts of Atlantic Canada, and Fredericton, despite the university-town stereotypes, is no exception. Ashfield is relatively visible, and has had a drama-free tenure as cabinet minister thus far; unless popular opinion starts moving strongly against the Conservatives, this will be a CPC hold.
	09 08 23	Haligonian Political Junkie 142.167.174.107
Fredericton posted some surprises in 2008, namely the margin by which the Conservatives won (I predicted a slim Liberal victory actually) and the impressive performance by the Greens (who had their second-best result east of Ontario here). Incumbent Keith Ashfield is a Cabinet Minister, which should give him assistance in holding his vote, yet his ability to hold on will also be decided by what shifts happen within the NDP/Green vote in Fredericton, which accounted for about 26% of all votes cast. The NDP in Fredericton probably have a worst-case scenario base of 10%, and their vote did sag to 15% in 2008 with the departure of John Carty as the NDP candidate and the emergence of Mary Lou Babineau as the Green candidate. Indeed, Babineau herself was likely a big reason for the gains made by the Greens here in 2008. She is not running again, and it is difficult to see the Greens holding on to their vote from 2008. How much it will decline, and where it will go, makes Fredericton tough to call. Moreover, what will happen to the NDP vote? Will it shift strategically to the Liberals, hold at 15%, or even go up due to fleeing Greens? Only one person appears to have declared an intention to run for the Liberal nomination here, this being Wendy Robbins, an English Literature professor at UNB. A scan of online news stories on this item suggests that Robbins would be a left-leaning Liberal, someone who would certainly be appealing to Green and NDP voters in the riding, much as Andy Scott was and apparently 2008 Liberal candidate David Innes wasn't. According to the CBC and The Daily Gleaner, her political CV includes involvement in Equal Voice and activism related to pay equity, anti-racism and family violence research, all ingredients that would play well in the academic-leftist circles that the local Greens and NDP rely on for core support. Were Robbins to become the Liberal candidate, she could present a challenge to Ashfield by potentially bringing 2008's Green and NDP voters on board. Too close to call now, though I would give the Conservatives a slight edge for now while waiting to see what the other three parties do.