Pauline Marois became the fourth consecutive premier to lose his or her own riding Monday, as the Parti Québécois was handed an even more crushing defeat than many in the party had expected.

Philippe Couillard's Liberals took 70 seats and 42 per cent of the vote, returning to power after just 18 months on the opposition benches.

The PQ was reduced from 54 to just 30 seats with 25 per cent support, their lowest share of the vote since the party's first electoral outing under René Lévesque in 1970.

The performance of François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec, particularly in the suburbs to the north and south of Montreal, sunk the PQ.

Though the CAQ did drop from 27 per cent to 23 per cent of the vote as compared to 2012, the party increased its seat total from 18 at dissolution to 22.

Seeing that he may now have an opportunity to replace the PQ as the alternative to the Liberals by the next election, Legault promised to stay on as leader of the party for the next four years.

Marois, on the other hand, announced her resignation. She had little choice. She had dissolved her own minority government in a quest for a majority and failed.

Marois lost in her own riding of Charlevoix-Côte-de-Beaupré, making her the latest incumbent provincial leader to fail to win a seat after Jean Charest in 2012 and Christy Clark and Darrell Dexter in 2013.

That the race to replace her has already begun was showcased when Jean-François Lisée, Bernard Drainville, and Pierre Karl Péladeau each gave speeches before Marois took the podium to announce she was calling it quits.

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