[1] Watson had been a member of the territorial Legislative Council since 1970, and became the first woman in Canadian history to lead a political party into a general election.

The Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 1985 election by the Yukon New Democratic Party (NDP) led by Tony Penikett.

By August, however, Young resigned as leader on the grounds that he felt the voters of Yukon were not prepared to support a party whose leader was so young and politically inexperienced,[5] and John Ostashek was acclaimed as his successor in November after his sole challenger, Daniel Lang, dropped out of the race.

He won only a minority government, and Nordling, Firth and Willard Phelps were all reelected as independents,[7] but all three opted to support the Yukon Party on confidence and supply.

Liberal Premier Pat Duncan's government was plagued with internal dissent, however, and despite having won an outright majority of seats in the general election, defections and resignations reduced the Liberals to a minority government within two years.

Despite being caught by surprise by the election call, the party was able to win a majority government with 12 seats compared to five for the NDP.

[10] On April 28, the NDP announced that they had entered into a formal confidence and supply agreement with the Liberals.

[13] On March 25, party president Mark Beese announced that the voting will take place over phone and online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.