Despite sweeping political change across the country, the Conservatives held the Liberals off the map in rural Manitoba ridings.
It's an area where the Tories have traditionally done quite well but the same can't be said inside the Perimeter, where Conservatives suffered major losses in Winnipeg.
While the Liberals didn't pick up new seats outside the city, the Grits did manage to grow their vote outside the Perimeter from the last federal election in 2011.
Brandon University political science professor Kelly Saunders said the Liberals pulled in between 25 and 37 per cent of the vote Monday night in some rural ridings.
Historically, the Liberals have not managed to get 10 per cent of the vote in rural Manitoba.
"They've displaced the NDP as sort of the solid alternative to the Conservatives and that for me has been quite a significant shift happening," said Saunders. "So you saw the return of Conservative incumbents, but not winning by the same huge majorities that they won before and that switch between the Liberals and the NDP I think is quite significant."
A sea of red washed over Winnipeg Monday night, for a near Liberal sweep of the city.
The only exception came in the form of an NDP win in the Elmwood-Transcona riding, barring any changes from a possible recount, which left the Conservatives without a single seat inside the perimeter as of Tuesday morning.
Saunders said that's bad news for the Tories.
"They've gone back to being sort of a rural-based, western Canadian kind of party and that's a problem because they can't win majority governments if they don't find a way of growing that base beyond that traditional rural, western Canadian kind of focus," she said."They've got some challenges as they move forward, for sure."
Saunders said the Liberal surge fell short in the rural ridings for a couple of different reasons.
"You certainly had popular incumbent MPs," said Saunders. "MP's that have been known to work hard for their constituents and who had been around for awhile either as an incumbent MP or certainly in the case of Larry Maguire (Brandon-Souris), well-known by virtue of his longtime spent as a member of the legislative assembly."
"So you certainly had that personal connection and the political culture is quite different in rural Manitoba than it is in urban centres," she said. "We tend to be a little bit more small 'c' Conservative, so the focus on taxes, family values--a little bit more socially conservative--that really plays out in rural Manitoba."
Saunders said rural Manitoba is changing, too. More people are leaving rural areas and moving to urban centres, which could spell more bad news for the Conservatives.
Saunders said with traditional Tory supporters moving up in age there needs to be a focus on attracting new voters.
"If they don't find a way of finding some replacements, some new voters, they're going to be in trouble as decades unfold," she said.
