NDP candidate Pam Boyde curtseyed quaintly as she bid a final thanks to a modest gathering of campaign workers and party supporters on hand Monday night to watch their party soundly defeated.

But she vowed to fight another day.

'It has been an incredible five weeks,' Boyde told 30 to 40 New Democrats supporters upon her arrival at campaign headquarters shortly after 8:30 p.m. 'It has been an incredible experience for me and it has been wonderful.

'But it could have been a better ending,' she joked.

While local results saw territory-wide loyalty for the New Democrats plummet and Liberal support climb dramatically, the 18-year resident of the Yukon pointed to growing support for the NDP across Canada.

Canadians, she said, have put national NDP Leader Jack Layton and the party in a position of influence.

'They have asked us to play a strong role, and we are in a position to hold the balance of power,' Boyde said of the Liberal minority handed to Prime Minister Paul Martin. 'And we will hold the balance of power.'

Incumbent Liberal MP Larry Bagnell was re-elected, garnering 5,721votes, compared to 3,215 votes for Boyde, which represented a drop of just over 1,000 votes from four years ago.

Conservative Party candidate James Hartle earned 2,609 votes, while 571 Yukoners cast ballots for Green party candidate Phillipe LeBlond, 294voted for Marijuana Party candidate Sean Davey and 114 for Christian Heritage Party candidate Geoff Capp.

Boyde and other party pundits attributed their lack of success to the popularity of the incumbent and Martin's fearmongering in the final days of the national campaign.

Four years ago, Bagnell earned his first term in office and ended 13 consecutive years of NDP rule over the federal seat in a tight election that saw him edge then-incumbent Louise Hardy by a paper-thin 70 votes 4,293 to 4,223.

It was the closest federal election since 1968, when Conservative MP Erik Nielsen barely hung on to his sixth consecutive term in office with a narrow 62-vote margin over Liberal candidate Chris Findlay.

It was anything but a photo-finish last night as support for the New Democrats crumbled by 6.5 per cent.

Support for Bagnell, on the other hand, catapulted by almost 1,500 votes, resulting in a sharp increase in overall support of 12 per cent.

In 2000, the contest shifted back and forth, almost with each return from the individual polling stations across the territory. Last night, the Liberal tide was deep red from the onset.

As New Democrats began posting returns shortly after the polls closed, the trend became clear. After just 10 polls has been calculated, Bagnell was already leading Boyde 456 votes to 226; Hartle had 218.

The trend never shifted.

Four years ago, rural Yukon had been particularly generous to the New Democrats. Not last night.

But, showing standard election night stalwartness, party supports remained optimistic, as the pending Liberal landslide had not completely began its descent.

Even before the first result was posted, NDP campaign manager Kathy Hannifan said her party couldn't call it; that they had run into too many undecided Yukoners during the campaign, or knocked on too many doors where nobody was home.

She did, however, predict a close, two-way race.

'It's too difficult to call, but we know we have a candidate that has worked hard out there and talked about the issues,' Hannifan said before the first results were posted.

She said the NDP numbers showed as much as one-third of voters were undecided heading to the polls.

The first sign of any enthusiasm, however, didn't come until it was announced that federal NDP Leader Jack Layton had won his seat and that was brief.

'I think people were looking for a change,' said Frank Turner, as he watched national results unfold at the NDP headquarters. 'Hopefully this will break some of the cynicism that has been built up over the years.'

Turner said he was there to support Boyde because he found her to be very bright, and a very hard worker.

'I think Larry, in most ways, has been a good MP but I guess the problem for me was the (national) Liberal party has been so much of a disappointment,' Turner said. 'It squandered so many resources, and just totally lacked vision.'

Territorial NDP Leader Todd Hardy said the drop in NDP support was partly due to the prime minister spending the last week telling Canadians a vote for anybody but the Liberals could mean a Conservative party government operating from the extreme right.

The Liberals used the same 'fearmongering' tactics in previous elections, and they used it again toward the end of this campaign, Hardy said.

'At some point, we've to say That is not good enough; you can't keep scaring us into voting for you.''

While he acknowledged the popularity of the Liberal incumbent, Hardy countered with a suggestion that Bagnell's popularity was nurtured by in-house Liberal politics.

He noted the number of times Bagnell was sent back to the Yukon with bags of money for different initiatives.

When Audrey McLaughlin and Hardy's wife, Louise, held the seat from 1987 to 2000, the Liberals never sent them home with money in their pocket for Yukoners, he said.

It shouldn't be Bagnell who gets the recognition, Hardy continued, but rather the community members and groups who fought for the funding in the first place.

But Hardy said the Liberals deserved what they got removal from a government of absolute power to a minority that will force them into accountability.

Layton, the local Opposition leader maintained, will insist on that accountability.

Even so, it's not likely the minority Liberals will go any longer than two years before there's another federal election, Hardy predicted.

He said Martin will have to move cautiously with his annual budgets and other key legislation if he wants to remain prime minister. But he's likely to tire of having to keep everybody happy, and will probably push the country into another federal vote by thumbing his nose at the other parties in about two years, Hardy predicted.

And Boyde will be ready, she told her supporters in her thank you address, and reiterated in an interview afterward.

She said she was disappointed in the outcome, and that she had worked hard to get to every community during the campaign, and to talk to as many people as she could.

From the very first night the writ was dropped, she was out knocking on doors. It was then, Boyde said, she understood the challenge of what it would take to get to every single Yukoner.

Bagnell, she said, had fours years and then some in his previous role as the former executive director of the Association of Yukon Communities.

'But now that I have time, I will talk to everybody in the territory and they will know Pam Boyde,' she said. 'I do want to represent this territory; I know the concerns people have expressed to me and I feel I could be a good, strong voice for the Yukon.'

Boyde also felt there were Yukoners convinced by Martin's 'scare tactics' to remain Liberal or risk a shift to the far right.

As she cut into two cakes baked in her honour, she wished quietly for another federal election in two years.

As she cut the second, she wished that she could be the victorious candidate for MP of the Yukon the next time around.