Chamber president Luke MacGregor said the high-profile nature of the race is generating a lot of discussion.

"It's a bit more exciting than it has been in the past," said MacGregor, who has heard lots of election talk at the local craft brewery he owns. 

"We have a big crowd Friday nights, and that is the number one topic until everybody has moved on to the next couple of rounds."

Grasseschi told the crowd that she decided to get into provincial politics last year when she saw Higgs "assaulted by the liberal media" over his changes to Policy 713.

Grasseschi told the audience she was inspired to run last year when she saw Premier Blaine Higgs being 'assaulted by the liberal media' for his stance on Policy 713, which is about gender identity in schools. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

Those changes require school staff to obtain consent from parents if a student under 16 wants to adopt a new name or pronoun reflecting their gender identity.

Before the change, parental consent wasn't required.

But after raising the issue, Grasseschi pivoted, saying that knocking on doors in the riding, "the number one issue that I heard about is cost of living."

Throughout the night she articulated the PC Party positions on issues from the environment to property taxes and from health care to housing.

She departed from the party line twice: to say she was open to "a conversation" about not applying sales taxes to N.B. Power bills – as the Liberals have promised — and to an inquiry on forest clearcutting and glyphosate spraying.

Herron argued that Grasseschi, who lives just outside the riding, doesn't represent the political mainstream and that he is the only one who can defeat her.

Herron, left, speaks with People's Alliance candidate Peter Graham after the debate in Hampton. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

He referred to her as "this version of the Conservatives, whose candidacy lives outside the fringes of this riding, who represents an extreme fringe politics that goes beyond the modern traditions of the province." 

Answering a question about 2SLGBTQ+ issues, Grasseschi argued her opponents have denigrated her based on things she said 20 years ago.

"Let me tell you what I believe in 2024," she said. "I believe in the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms]."

She read from Section 2 of the Charter, which guarantees freedom of religion, expression and assembly, among others. 

"I would run in front of a bullet to protect these fundamental rights and freedoms for our LGBTQ+ kids and for every single one of us, no matter who we are and how we express ourselves," she said.

She did not mention other sections of the Charter, such as Section 7 protecting security of the person — the clause that led to the decriminalization of abortion — or Section 15 on equality, which helped pave the way to legalize same-sex marriage.

Grasseschi has been attacked, mocked and insulted on social media for her views, including by critics who have posted old videos of her speaking in tongues and claiming to heal people through faith.

"I'd like to propose that there's been no one in this town that has been more bullied, more shamed, more harassed online, than the woman that you're looking at right now," she said at the debate.

"But you know what? That doesn't change who I am. I still love, and I'll still fight for you and your loved ones, and I still care." 

Green candidate Laura Myers, right, argued that Herron is not the only person who can beat Grasseschi. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

Four other candidates are running in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins, though the NDP and Libertarian candidates did not appear at Wednesday's debate.

The Green Party's Laura Myers rejected Herron's argument that only the Liberals can block Grasseschi. 

"The comment I hear the most at the door is 'Well, I know who I'm not voting for,'" she said. "You can't get what you want by voting for what you don't want."

Myers, a welll-known community volunteer and former teacher, earned enthusiastic applause from many of the people at the debate.

People's Alliance candidate Peter Graham said he also left the PC Party over its direction and argued the formerly right-leaning, populist Alliance is now a moderate, middle-of-the-road option.

"We reject extremism," he said. "We've got this dichotomy of the Liberal Party and the PCs, and they're at loggerheads and they won't work collaboratively on anything. … As a centrist party, we can bridge that gap."

For MacDonald, the lifelong PC member and former assistant to Crossman, the 90 minutes of discussion wasn't enough for her to make a decision.

"The first part of the debate, I was saying, 'This is the way I'm going to go.' Then in the second part, things changed around a bit," she said.

Ultimately, she said, the fraying of old party loyalties may be healthy.

"In some ways it's good, because it's really got people thinking outside the box," she said.

"It really makes you look at what's going on, instead of saying, 'I'm a PC, I'm always going to be a PC.' Now I'm starting to look at party policies, what people are saying, what the constituents are saying, and really listening." 

Liberal incumbent John Herron has lost his New Brunswick riding to Conservative Rob Moore.

Moore received less than 35 per cent of the popular vote, while NDP Pat Hanratty came in third with 16 per cent.

Moore is a lawyer and helped organize the Canadian Alliance in the riding in the late 1990s, running in 2000.

Herron represented the riding for two terms as a Progressive Conservative, but spoke against the merger. He said he believes the union of the Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties has swung his former party too far to the right for his comfort.

This area has given its support to the Progressive Conservatives in every election for the past 80 years, save for 1993, when Liberal Paul Zed won office. Zed was then beaten in 1997 by Herron.

In February 2004, Herron announced that he would leave the newly merged Conservatives to sit as an Independent and would run as a Liberal in this election.