The 2003 New Brunswick general election was held on June 9, 2003, to elect 55 members to the 55th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly. Although polls initially suggested a landslide victory for Premier Bernard Lord's Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick, the dynamics of the race shifted after Shawn Graham, leader of the Liberal Party of New Brunswick, took on auto insurance rates as a key issue of his campaign. Lord and the Progressive Conservatives were ultimately re-elected by a narrow margin of just 2 seats.

[Rendition of party representation in the 55th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly decided by this election.

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Campaign

Leading up to the election, New Brunswick had its car insurance rates skyrocket. The Liberal Party of New Brunswick consequently focused its campaign on three points: On the other hand, the campaign of Premier Bernard Lord and his Progressive Conservative Party faced a number of problems, especially after changing its position on the key issue of auto insurance several times during the 30-day campaign. The results were very close, and for most of election night as the results came in, the winner was unclear. Shawn Graham was even heard to remark on television as the night was drawing to a close that "Up to 5 minutes ago, I thought I was Premier". New Democratic Party of New Brunswick leader Elizabeth Weir was the only member of her party to win a seat. The party ran 55 candidates throughout the province. The newly founded but short-lived New Brunswick Grey Party, a branch of the Grey Party of Canada, also ran 10 candidates, including party leader Jim Webb.

Results

Results by party

!rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|Party !rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|Party leader !rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|# of candidates !colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|Seats !colspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|Popular vote

Results by region

Candidates

Party leaders and cabinet ministers are denoted in bold.

Northern New Brunswick

Eastern New Brunswick

Southeastern New Brunswick

John Gallant (Grey) 72

Greater Saint John & Fundy Coast

Colby Fraser (Ind.) 189

Greater Fredericton

Upper Saint John River Valley