“We will build and we will come back from this.”

Kate White made the promise on stage Monday night in a large room at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.

She offered the crisp assurance after it became clear she and party leader Liz Hanson would be the only New Democrats to retain their seats in the legislature.

Despite the obviously disappointing results coming in through the night, NDP supporters and candidates stood firm in their commitment to the party’s platform, its values, and Hanson.

The party leader took her riding of Whitehorse Centre with 487 votes compared to 432 for Liberal Tamara Goeppel and 193 for the Yukon Party’s Doug Graham.

In Takhini-Kopper King, White came out with a full 127 votes over her closest candidate, Liberal Jeane Lasson. who finished her first election race with 421 votes. The Yukon Party candidate in the riding, Vanessa Innes, ended the evening with 229 ballots in her favour.

Hanson and White were greeted with loud cheers and applause as they took to the stage before the packed room of supporters.

Many had donned at least one piece of clothing featuring bright NDP orange. Among those not wearing some sort of orange garment were many who made sure they had a campaign button or sign declaring their support for the party.

After declaring the NDP had the “best platform and the best candidates,” White told the crowd the party also has the best leader, then introduced Hanson.

“I am so proud,” Hanson said. “We ran a strong, honest campaign.”

Campaigning throughout the territory, the party heard the challenges facing Yukoners and came together for a shared goal of protecting the place they love for future generations, she said.

Hanson went on to acknowledge it was not the result they wanted.

She stressed she is proud of all the party accomplished through the campaign in listening to Yukoners and working to protect the territory.

She thanked all those who had been involved in the campaign, from those who had put their names forward to run to the staff and volunteers who had put in so many hours, cooked food for the candidates, put up countless campaign signs and so many other tasks that come with any election campaign.

On a more personal note, she thanked her family.

“Our work will carry on,” she said, vowing to keep up the fight in the legislature for a full ban on hydraulic fracturing in the territory, a more sustainable economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels, a $15 minimum wage and keeping big money out of politics.

Hanson also summed up her thoughts with words from the late Jack Layton, the former leader of the federal NDP who died three months after the 2011 federal election.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

While standing firm on the NDP platform, Hanson offered praise to candidates of all political stripes.

She pointed out it’s clear every candidate who put their name in the hat to represent Yukoners in the legislature care deeply about the territory and its future.

She spoke by phone with Liberal Leader Sandy Silver, who was celebrating in his Klondike riding, to congratulate him on his win.

She later told reporters he expressed his thanks and offered to buy her a post-election beer.

As Hanson later told reporters, it’s a small community, and the two party leaders are also neighbours in Whitehorse.

As she wrapped up her speech, she was greeted by cheers of “NDP, NDP, NDP!” This was followed by a long lineup of supporters who greeted her with a hug as she made her way through the room.

Her speech marked the end of what had been an obviously disappointing night for many in the room, but one where party supporters and candidates put in the effort to stay upbeat.

The evening was interspersed with cheers whenever television coverage playing on a large screen on the stage would turn to the NDP event, or at times when early results showed the NDP ahead in individual polls.

As candidates made their way through the room, they hugged, chatted, and clinked beer bottles with one another and supporters marking the end of the campaign.

As results started arriving, so did the pizza, spring rolls and other goodies, along with many party-faithful until the room was packed.

People had to carefully manoeuvre their way through the crowd to get around the room for what at times could be called a celebration.

Shaunaugh Stikeman ended up in second behind Liberal Jeanie Dendys for the Mountainview riding.

However, it was not lost on anyone that the first-time NDP candidate was well ahead of Yukon Party Premier Darrell Pasloski.

“Shauna’s destroying the Paz,” White remarked to cheers as a crowd gathered around the results that were continually updated on pages posted along the wall.

Others could be heard commenting on the extremely close six-vote difference between Stikeman and Dendys.

One supporter told her former NDP premier Tony Penikett had to run multiple times before he was elected in Whitehorse West, and in those votes he never came as close as Stikeman did this time.

There will be an automatic recount for the seat, given the six-vote difference of 439 to 433 between Dendys and Stikeman. Pasloski ended up with 399 votes.

While many NDPers put in the cheers at all the right moments, the disappointment and shock for many was clear throughout the night as it became clear that four MLAs (Kevin Barr, Lois Moorcroft, Jan Stick and Jim Tredger) would not return to the legislature.

When it was obvious Stick would not retain her seat in Riverdale South, Hanson noted her own surprise, describing Stick as “very hard-working, one of the most dedicated MLAs.”

Stick drew 384 votes in her favour compared to 421 for Liberal winner Tracy McPhee and 323 for the Yukon Party’s Danny Macdonald. The defeated MLA said she felt the NDP had put together a great team and platform, and at the end of the day, she’d done everything she could.

Stick, a former city councillor, acknowledged it was difficult in this campaign to make a call either way on how voters in the riding were leaning.

She will take some time to make plans for the future, but said she also has her book store, Well Read Books.

Moorcroft placed third for her seat in Copperbelt South, with 331 votes behind Liberal Jocelyn Curteanu, who had 425, and winner Scott Kent of the Yukon Party.

Moorcroft came out well ahead of the only other candidate in the riding, the Greens’ Philippe LeBlond, who took just 12 votes.

“It’s disappointing,” Moorcroft, a former NDP Justice minister, said of the results, though she also recognized the riding has a solid base of Yukon Party supporters.

It was only a three-vote margin over Valerie Boxall of the Yukon Party in 2011 by which Moorcroft won the seat she will now be leaving.

She is a veteran in territorial politics, having served as the NDP MLA for Mount Lorne from 1992 to 2000 before being defeated in the Liberal sweep of 2000.

She pointed out she spent the following decade after that election involved with a number of organizations and committees, ranging from the Yukon Human Rights Commission to extensive involvement with a number of women’s groups and others.

She said her work may take that type of direction again after she spends some time deciding her next step.

Even with disappointing results, party supporters and candidates remained on-hand throughout the night to offer words of encouragement and voice their support for the NDP.

Among those supporters was former federal NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin.

Though not out door-knocking in this campaign, the 80-year-old former Yukon MP offered her praises on a well-run campaign that held true to NDP values.

She also pointed out that those entering the political realm know they may lose, and in the Yukon, it’s possible to lose by just a couple of votes.

“You work as hard as you can,” she said, noting there’s not anything more that can be done.

As conversations throughout the room turned to speculation over the results, “strategic voting” was a term that came up again.

Loyalists and candidates pointed out the message from the Liberals seemed to be that if voters didn’t want to see a return of the Yukon Party, they should cast their ballots for the Liberals.

Hanson said it’s not something she agrees with, and her party tried to offer Yukoners something to vote for rather than something to vote against.

As Hanson noted though, “Ultimately, the voters make the decision.”