The PQ won re-election despite having lost the 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty. To some extent, they were helped by Claude Ryan's old-fashioned campaign style (he refused to tailor sound bites for the evening news and ran a generally TV-unfriendly campaign).
The Union Nationale, which had won 11 seats in a modest comeback in the 1976 general election, was wiped off the map in this election, and never won another seat in any subsequent election (it is now disbanded). They were not helped by the fact that their leader in the 1976 election, Rodrigue Biron, had in the meantime resigned and defected to the Parti Québécois.
CBC TV video clip (http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-651-3575/politics_economy/quebec_elections/clip7)
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