Steve Crocker sweeps Trinity-Bay de Verde byelection for Liberals

Liberal Steve Crocker has won the byelection in Trinity-Bay de Verde more than1700votesadding yet another seat for his party, which has now won seven consecutive byelections.

In Tuesday night's vote, Crockereasily beat PC candidate Ron Johnson and NDP candidate Tolson Rendellto take the seat.

Crocker won with 3074 votes, while Johnson got 1363 votes, and Rendell finished with 254 votes.

The seat had been left vacant byformer cabinet minister Charlene Johnson, whoretired from politics last September to focus on her family.

The win marks the first time the Liberals have won the seat in Trinity-Bay de Verde since 2003, when Johnson was elected under then-premier Danny Williams.

The Liberals won both byelectionson Tuesday night, which now means the PCs have lost seven consecutive seatsto the party.

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Tories 'dumbfounded'

PC candidate Ron Johnson said he will not run for politics again after Tuesday's vote, following a failed attempt to hold onto the seat formally held by his daughter, Charlene Johnson.

"What we got at the doors was different from the vote," he said.

"I think we drove more Liberals to the polls than PCs."

In an interview after the results were announced, Charlene Johnson said she was "dumbfounded" at her father's loss, and that she isn't very optimisticabout her party's chances leading up to the next provincialelection in 2015.

"I thought if we could win at least one of these byelections, we could really turn it around and give Paul [Davis] a chance," she said.