By Eric Bourque
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
In the end, what bothered Progressive Conservative candidate Charles Crosby more than anything about Tuesday’s Yarmouth byelection result, he said, was the vote count in the south end of town.
Crosby, who finished second to Liberal Zach Churchill in the provincial byelection, is a native south-ender and he had hoped to do strongly there.
“The only thing that disappointed me is that I didn’t win my poll in south end,” Crosby said as he addressed Tory party supporters at the Yarmouth Knights of Columbus hall. “That always bothers me, when I don’t come out of south end with a big win. That’s where I was born and raised.”
Crosby finished with 2,628 votes, 33.38 per cent of the votes cast.
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Churchill topped the six-candidate field with a vote total of 3,986 (about 50 per cent of the ballots cast), according to unofficial results.
Independent candidate Belle Hatfield placed third with 673 votes, followed by John Deveau of the NDP (513), John Percy of the Green Party (49) and Jonathan Dean of the Atlantica Party (19).
Crosby won four of 41 polls.
Thanking his supporters and campaign workers, Crosby said, “I can tell you, you have nothing to hang your heads over. We ran a clean campaign.”
A former mayor of Yarmouth – a position he held for 20 years – and long-time town councillor before that, Crosby indicated Tuesday evening that this was it as far as his political ambitions are concerned.
“This is the end of my political career,” he said. Supporters responded with a loud chorus of “No.”
He added, “But I can tell you three years from now, whoever our candidate is, I’ll be in the trenches.”
Referring to his campaigning in the weeks leading up to the byelection, Crosby said he heard positive things from people regarding his candidacy.
The MLA expense scandal – the fallout from which led to the resignation of Tory MLA Richard Hurlburt this past winter and necessitated the byelection – didn’t seem to be an issue to the people he spoke to, Crosby said.
