Earlier in the day, Elections Nova Scotia confirmed it would begin counting ballots at 8 p.m., as expected, but the agency said it wouldn't release any results until 9 p.m. because a problem with election supplies forced a polling station on the province's Eastern Shore to remain open for an extra hour.

With his party riding high in the polls, Houston called a snap election, saying a second term would strengthen his bargaining position with the leader of the unpopular federal Liberal government, especially when it comes to seeking a new deal on carbon pricing.

But the premier faced withering criticism from Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Zach Churchill and NDP Leader Claudia Chender, both of whom accused him of ignoring the first law his government passed in 2021 that set July 15, 2025, as the date for the next election.

In 2021, Houston said the law would "limit any perceived advantage by the government."

Chender and Churchill -- both contesting their first election as a party leader -- accused the premier of breaking a promise on the first day of the fall campaign.

At dissolution, Houston's Tories held 34 of the legislature's 55 seats, the Liberals had 14 seats, the NDP six and there was one Independent. In the past year, two Liberals crossed the floor to join the Tories.

During the campaign, Houston offered voters a no-frills, stay-the-course platform.

On Monday, Chender challenged his justification for calling an early election. "The idea that this government needs a mandate to bicker with Ottawa is absurd," she said. "This government called an election because they want more power."

The New Democrats have languished in third place since the province's first NDP government, elected in 2009 with Darrell Dexter at the helm, lost to the Liberals in 2013.

Houston, a 54-year-old chartered accountant, told voters he also wanted their approval for his plans to deal with a stubborn affordability crisis and a desperate housing shortage that has seen the province's homeless population soar.

But the telegenic, silver-haired premier returned again and again to his complaints about Trudeau. Houston also took aim at Ottawa's refusal to pay the entire cost of shoring up the Chignecto Isthmus, the strip of land between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that is increasingly at risk of severe flooding.

During a televised leaders debate, Churchill took aim at Houston's bid to capitalize on Trudeau's slumping popularity. "Mr. Houston would rather kick and scream and whine than actually do his job and negotiate a better deal for you," the Liberal leader said.

When the Tories released their election platform Nov. 8, Houston said the slim, 28-page document represented a "continuation of a plan that is already working."

By contrast, the hefty platform Houston released in 2021 was 130 pages, and the focus of that campaign was almost entirely on his promise to "fix" a health-care system beset by a shortage of doctors, long wait-times for ambulances and recurring horror stories about people failing to receive proper treatment.

Last week, during another televised leaders debate, Chender and Churchill reminded the premier that the registry for Nova Scotians seeking a family doctor had doubled under his watch to more than 140,000. Houston responded by saying Nova Scotians had to be patient. "The job is not done, for sure, but there has been incredible progress," he said, again emphasizing the need for more time rather than big changes.

The premier repeatedly told voters that the province's economy was growing, and there were hundreds more doctors and thousands more nurses in the province than in 2021.

"I was clear with Nova Scotians in 2021 that things would probably get worse before they get better, and they did get worse," he said in the introduction to his party's platform. "But we're on the right path."

As for affordability and housing, the Tories made those issues their top priorities. The party's signature promise is to lower the harmonized sales tax by one percentage point to 14 per cent. They also pledged to cap electricity rate increases so that they won't exceed the national average. And they promised to raise minimum wage to $16.50 an hour by next year.

On the housing front, Houston promised to follow through on his 2023 promise to build 40,000 homes in four years. During the campaign, the premier vowed to press on with that plan, saying, "We're on a good path. We have a plan. The plan is working."

The NDP's Chender, a 48-year-old lawyer and mother of three, argued that the cost of these new homes would be beyond the reach of most Nova Scotians. She promised to build 30,000 new affordable rental units by working with non-profits and co-op housing providers.

Churchill, a 40-year-old career politician with some experience as a policy analyst, said a Liberal government would push the private sector to build 80,000 homes by 2032.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2024.