What will be interesting is which party comes in second or heck maybe even Greens form official opposition. I am pretty sure BC United and BC Conservatives will merge before 2028 but whomever comes in second has upper hand and party will look more like that.
If BC United, maybe good in long term as Lower Mainland probably more receptive to them and while your pro-business type isn't exactly popular now, economic policy tends to go in cycles so at least will be able to win when economic conservatism becomes more popular even though unlikely will dominate way pro free enterprise coalition whatever it was called did in past. Still will always be susceptible to a more right wing takeover and actually think keeping liberal name helped party before as MAGA type crazies see word liberal as a four letter word so they stayed out of power, but rest on centre-right cared more about policies than name so united right minus the crazies.
BC Conservatives, at moment being populist and more out there seem better positioned to do well as lots of parties across Canada and globe like them doing well. But with how urban, diverse, and educated BC is, its probably one of the worst provinces for right wing populism. Will dominate Interior once merged but unlikely to do well in Lower Mainland. In fact BC might follow path of California which was once a state GOP won most of the time but now is no longer competitive at any level.
That being said there isn't enough time left to merge or even cut a deal to not run candidates against each other. And even if they did latter I highly doubt would get the combined. Many BC Conservatives see BC United as another left wing party like BC NDP (they are not) and would just stay home if only choice was BC United. By same token some more moderate types find BC Conservatives too extreme and would either stay home or plug nose and vote NDP. A lot of the wealthy ridings BC Liberals used to dominate in Lower Mainland like Vancouver-Quilchena and West Vancouver-Capilano are eerily similar to your Romney-Biden counties in US. It seems in US & UK your wealthy educated types are seeing big swings to left and I suspect it has little to do with becoming more economically left wing and more their disdain for right wing populism is stronger than dislike of left wing economic policies. Even in Alberta, you saw this with some fairly well off ridings in Calgary almost going NDP and in Winnipeg NDP did win some and few didn't come closer than ever have before.
So if had a non-compete agreement, would maybe stop an NDP landslide, but NDP would still win a comfortable majority. And dividing up ridings based on non-compete would be very messy and anger it would create probably would lead to many on other side just staying home and not voting at all.
there isnt the cpc doing well in polling in bc?
