New Brunswick general election, 1978

1974 ←

October 23, 1978

→ 1982

58 seats of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick 30 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Richard Hatfield	Joseph Daigle	John LaBossiere
Party	Progressive Conservative	Liberal	New Democratic
Leader since	June 14, 1969	May 6, 1978	1976
Leader's seat	Carleton Centre	Kent North	Ran in Kent Centre (lost)
Last election	33	25	0
Seats won	30	28	0
Seat change	-3	+3	0

Map of New Brunswick's ridings coloured in based on the winning parties

Premier before election

Richard Hatfield
Progressive Conservative

Premier-designate

Richard Hatfield
Progressive Conservative

The 29th New Brunswick general election was held on October 23, 1978, to elect 58 members to the 49th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, the governing house of the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Richard Hatfield's Progressive Conservative Party narrowly won its third term.

In the lead up to 1978, the Opposition Liberal Party seemed destined to return to power. A number of scandals had been tied to the Conservatives and Liberal leader Robert Higgins was widely popular. In early 1978, Higgins believed he had tied some of the scandals directly to Hatfield himself. In a bold move, Higgins promised to resign should Hatfield prove that he was not tied directly to the scandal, which Hatfield promptly did. Higgins was forced to abruptly resign and was replaced by Joseph Daigle as leader. The Liberals mused that Hatfield had purposely ensured false information was leaked to the Liberals to lead them into making false accusations.

Higgins' resignation created Hatfield's best chance to go to the polls. He called an election shortly after Daigle became Liberal leader. Despite the lack of a direct link to Hatfield, scandal remained tied to his government and a close election result was assured.

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