MONCTON, New Brunswick (AP) – New Brunswick voters heeded Shawn Graham’s call for change Monday by choosing the boyish-looking Liberal leader as premier over Bernard Lord, the one-time boy wonder of Conservative politics.

Graham, 38, ousted Lord, who became the first New Brunswick premier since the 1950s to fail to win a third term.

Graham, who was easily re-elected in his riding of Kent, campaigned extensively on the need for change and it seemed to resonate with voters.

The result was the culmination of an uneventful, four-week campaign that was characterized by caution on the part of Lord, Graham and the New Democratic Party’s Allison Brewer.

Throughout the campaign, opinion polls suggested the race between the Tories and the Liberals was too close to call.

That proved to be true in early returns as the parties traded leads, but the Liberals soon opened a lead that proved insurmountable.

With so much at stake, both Lord and Graham ran smooth, safe campaigns that promised New Brunswickers a lower cost of living, more jobs, and better opportunities under their administrations.

Lord, 40, was re-elected in Moncton East. Once touted as a possible federal Tory leader, he appealed to New Brunswickers to stay the course with his party, which brought in a series of balanced budgets and lower taxes.

In the final days of the campaign, he attempted to open some ground between himself and Graham by pledging to cut the province’s income tax by eight per cent.

Lord also reminded voters that he enjoys a close, personal friendship with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, suggesting that those ties will translate into greater federal largesse for New Brunswick.

“We have a positive plan for the future,” he told supporters during the campaign. “Don’t risk it by returning to the ways of the past.”

But it wasn’t enough to persuade voters to give him another term.

Domenic LeBlanc, a New Brunswick Liberal MP, said he sensed for a couple of months that people wanted change.

“There was a certain fatigue that had set in with the arrogance of the Lord government,” he said.

Graham stumped on the reliable old standby in politics – time for a change.

He told voters that seven years of Tory government have produced a record of failure and lost opportunity.

The former gym teacher struck the most effective chords when he reminded New Brunswickers that their children are leaving the province, searching for better, more prosperous futures in Western Canada.

“It frustrates me, and I know it frustrates you, that we are losing a planeload of New Brunswickers every single week who are travelling to Alberta to work,” Graham said during one campaign stop.

“It’s my commitment to bring those New Brunswickers back home.”

Although Lord painted a rosy economic picture of the province, its economic outlook is uncertain. Population decline due to the exodus of young people is one of the biggest clouds on the province’s horizon.

Brewer, 52, the rookie leader of the NDP, struggled to deliver a clear message and lost her bid for a seat in Fredericton-Lincoln.