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Canadian federal elections have provided the following results in the Eastern Townships.
Regional Profile
In 1988 and 1984 this area was nearly swept by the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney, winning all but one seat in 1988 (Shefford) and two in 1984 (Shefford and Richmond-Wolfe). Previously, the Tories only had one riding won in either 1979 or 1980, and that was in Missisquoi in 1979. The Social Credit party also won a seat here in 1979, in Beauce. By the following election in 1993, Mulroney had left office and support for the Tories all across Quebec moved to the Bloc Québécois. Locally, the Bloc won all but two seats; the exceptions were in Beauce, which was won by former Conservative Gilles Bernier who ran as an independent, and in Sherbrooke, where Jean Charest was one of only two PC candidates to win in all of Canada. By 1997, he was PC leader and local candidates running on his coattails did well, resulting in a split between the Progressive Conservatives (four seats) the Bloc Québécois (three seats) and the Liberals (two seats). However, in 1998, Charest moved to provincial politics as leader of the Quebec Liberal Party (which is independent of the federal Liberals, despite the similarity of names), and without him local support for the PCs declined. By the 2000 election two of the PC members, David Price and Diane St-Jacques, had left the party and joined the federal Liberals. André Bachand remained with the PCs in 2000 and was re-elected, but declined to join the newly merged Conservatives and retired from politics in 2004. Traditional Bloc support in this region is concentrated in the northwest part, and in the Frontenac-Megantic region. Nonetheless, Bloc support weakened across the board here in 2006, primarily to the Conservatives.
In 2011, the New Democratic surge cost the Bloc six of its seven seats in the region; the two Conservatives retained their seats. Four years later, the Conservatives picked up a seat at the expense of the Bloc while Liberal support climbed enough for them to steal three seats from the New Democrats.