BC Election on October 24th

[Benjamin Frank]

Fun fact: If the NDP win the most votes in this election, it will be only the third time in BC history the NDP/CCF have won the popular vote at a provincial election (after 1972 and 1991).

Close, but not quite.  Also in 1952.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_British_Columbia_general_election

That was a very contentious election because the anti CCF Liberal-Conservative coalition at that time was splintering and they brought in ranked ballot voting for that election specifically to keep the CCF out of power.

[Benjamin Frank]

My prediction:

NDP - 55 (48%)
Lib - 30 (34%)
GP - 2 (15%)

This would be a record NDP vote (beating 1979's 45.2%), but not a record majority (38 of 55 in 1972 still wins there).

I frankly expected the big NDP lead to erode over the campaign, as people pushed against the early election call, but it's held up quite well (as the Liberal campaign was pretty awful).

This seems to be the general consensus, even down to agreement on the specific seats each party will win, with one exception: you must have forgotten that in the safe Liberal riding in Chilliwack, the Liberal MLA and candidate, Laurie Throness, quit the party (or was tossed) and is now running as an independent.

This could swing the riding to the NDP, but most likely either the now independent Throness, or a city councilor running as an independent will win.

So, the consensus is
NDP 55
Liberal 29
Green 2
Independent 1

[Benjamin Frank]

Lots of ridings going NDP that would seem crazy even three years ago. But they couldn't flip fraser-nicola. Any idea why?

Fraser-Nicola, Skeena and Columbia River-Revelstoke were three ridings I and the riding prediction sites predicted would go to the NDP.

In the case of Fraser-Nicola, the NDP was hurt by their nomination battle.  The obnoxious former NDP MLA Harry Lali tried to run again for the nomination, but was blocked from running in favor of a person whom he defeated for the nomination in 2017.

The NDP riding executive all quit over this and, one of them, former NDP federal candidate, Dennis Adamson ran as an independent and received 673 votes while the NDP lost the riding by 385 votes (as of now.)


The expectations based on the polling from myself and the riding prediction sites were that the NDP would make a comeback in the interior, not make major gains in the Fraser Valley.  So, the total number of seats the NDP has won so far is the same as predicted, but the seats  aren't entirely as expected.

[Benjamin Frank]

This link shows the number of vote by mail requests per riding. Note that 724,000 requests were received and the latest estimate is that well over 500,000 mail in ballots were returned.

https://elections.bc.ca/docs/2020-vote-by-mail-statistics.pdf

West Vancouver-Seat to Sky had 7,700 requests and if we assume the return rate is about the same two-thirds as across the province there should be about 5,000 ballots to be counted, plus several hundred other absentee and special ballots.

Note that there are huge numbers of mail in requests in urban seats and on vancouver island and much less in the interior.

There were about 1.785 million in the preliminary vote count in 2017 (mostly before the provisional ballots were counted, not sure what happened to the provisional vote in this election.)   This time before the mail in votes have been counted (and provisional votes?)  there have been just over 1.21 million votes counted.

That is just over 2/3 of the preliminary vote of 2017.  By region, the total number of votes counted so far in Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island is about 2/3 of the preliminary votes of the 2017 election but the total number of votes counted in the Interior so far is about 3/4 of the preliminary votes of the 2017 election.

There were an additional 185,000 votes for the the final total of around 1,975,000 in 2017.  Unless there are provisional ballots as well in this election, the final vote count for 2020 will likely be somewhere just under the final preliminary vote count in 2017. (Maybe 1.75 million.)

[Benjamin Frank]

Multiple Canadian news outlets saying even in spite of the large mail-in ballots, lowest turnout for a B.C. election ever.

Around 52%  Not sure it's the lowest percent turnout ever.

[Benjamin Frank]

These are the turnout numbers from the election B.C website
670,324 voted in advance
546,877 voted on election day
85,000 absentee ballots have yet to be counted
525,000 mail in ballots have been received
there are 3,485,858 registered voters.

[Benjamin Frank]

There is discussion of the B.C Liberal Party changing its name.  Somehow after 6 elections from 1996 to 2017, including 1 landslide win and three other majorities, conservative voters won't vote for a party with the name 'Liberal.'

There has also been some discussion of renaming the Liberal Party as the B.C Party.

Maybe the rules have changed since, but for a bit of history, in 1995 Gordon Wilson wanted to name his newly formed party the British Columbia Pacific Party (the name was mocked for being B.C.P.P) however, Elections B.C disallowed the name arguing that having the term "B.C/British Columbia in it) might convey to voters that it was the official political party of the province.

[Benjamin Frank]

In general, how do the BC Liberals compare to Ontario PCs on the economic/redistribution element of the political spectrum? Are Ford's PCs less liberal (in the classical sense) and more populist-y? Or are the differences not so stark?

Some people here refer to the B.C Liberals under Christy Clark as 'populist' which made them popular in the Interior.  I think I disagree with that, as for a great deal of their tenure with her as Premier they were obsessed with LNG development to the exclusion of virtually everything else. 

I'm not sure that it's easy to characterize the Christy Clark Liberals as having any ideology.  The thing that struck the most to me is that Christy Clark is clearly a narcissist and probably a malignant narcissist, and she seemed to enjoy 'owning the Lower Mainland' from time to time, which possibly some people in the Interior appreciated.

Under Gordon Campbell, they governed as Mike Harris Tories in their first term from 2001-2005, but in their second term, possibly chastened by the narrower than expected majority and with Carole Taylor as Finance Minister, they governed as solid center/center left liberals.  They ditched their antagonism to the Indigenous Communities and they passed the carbon tax, for two examples.

[Benjamin Frank]

The mail in votes start coming in today.  I've been up watching the U.S returns, can somebody explain this to me.  Have additional votes been added in?:

https://electionsbcenr.blob.core.windows.net/electionsbcenr/GE-2020-10-24.html

[Benjamin Frank]

As far as I can tell, 87 people all named In progress have won every riding!
https://elections.bc.ca/docs/report-status-of-final-count.pdf

OK, that was stupid, sorry.

Being serious, updates have been posted:
1.New Democrat Pam Alexis now ahead of Liberal Simon Gibson by 547 in Abbotsford-Mission (would be gain for NDP)

2.New Democrat Kelli Paddon now ahead of Laurie Throness by 414 in Chilliwack-Kent

3.Green Leader Sonia Fursteneau's lead has dropped to 770 over New Democrat Rob Douglas in Cowichan Valley

4.New Democrat Aman Singh now ahead of Liberal Jas Johal by 993 in Richmond-Queensborough

5.Nathan Cullen now over 50% in Stikine

6.New Democrat Brenda Bailey now ahead of Liberal Sam Sullivan by 1,413 in Vancouver-False Creek

7.David Eby now only slightly under 50% in Vancouver-Point Grey

8.New Democrat Harwinder Sandhu now ahead of Liberal Eric Foster by 50 in Vernon-Monashee (would be gain for NDP.)

9.Green Jeremy Valeriote ahead of Liberal Jordan Sturdy by 729 in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky

https://electionsbcenr.blob.core.windows.net/electionsbcenr/GE-2020-10-24_Candidate.html

If these NDP gains hold, that changes the count to 57 New Democrats, 27 Liberals and 3 Greens.

Those were considered the 2 most likely ridings to switch, but the NDP was also fairly close in Fraser-Nicola, Surrey-White Rock and Vancouver-Langara and I'm not sure if they've been updated.

Surrey South and Peter Milobar in Kamloops were also under 10% wins, but the Liberals seem to have held them.

[Benjamin Frank]

No comments about the updated results?

Where is everybody?

Edit to add: I hate you all.

[Benjamin Frank]

More updates because there is so much interest here.

1.In both of the other Abbotsford ridings, the Liberal candidates have dropped from approximately 47% of the vote on election day to approximately 45% of the vote and Mike De Jong is now ahead by just under 10% (9% to be precise.)  This is evidence the NDP win in Abbotsford-Mission was not some bizarre anomaly. 

2.Jackie Tegart's lead over Aaron Sumexheltza in Fraser-Nicola is down to 282, but I'm not sure how many ballots are left to be counted.

3.Same deal in Kamloops-North Thompson where Peter Milobar's lead is down to 520, not sure how many ballots are left to be counted.

4.Aman Singh's lead over Jas Johal in Richmond-Queensborough is now up to 1,678.

[Benjamin Frank]

KEY RACE ALERT

Liberal Jordan Sturdy is now ahead of Green Jeremy Valeriote by 41 votes in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

The only marginal compensation for the Greens should they lose that riding is that Sonia Furstenau has increased her lead to 1,184.

KEY RACE UPDATE:
Apparently all the votes have been counted and Jordan Sturdy has won by 41 votes.  I'm sure they'll be a recount.

https://www.nsnews.com/news/in-a-surprise-twist-liberals-hold-on-to-west-vancouver-sea-to-sky-by-41-votes-1.24235356

[Benjamin Frank]

Peter Milobar's lead is down to 407.

New Democrat Henry Yao has increased his lead in Richmond South Centre to 179.

New Democrat Rachna Singh in Surrey-Green Timbers has gone from 55.5% of the vote on election day to 58.3%

[Benjamin Frank]

1.New Democrat Harwinder Sandhu has increased her lead over Liberal Eric Foster in Vernon-Monashee to 282.

2.David Eby's vote share is now up to 51.3%

3.New Democrat Brenda Bailey has increased her lead over Liberal Sam Sullivan in Vancouver-False Creek to 1,839.

[Benjamin Frank]

KEY RACE UPDATE
Peter Milobar is reelected in Kamloops-North Thompson by 198 votes.


Peter Milobar on what he credited his reelection to:  "Every morning for breakfast I have a bowl of Kam Loops and not a bowl of Fruit Loops."  

Also
Liberal Trevor Halford is elected in Surrey-White Rock over New Democrat Bryn Smith by 224 votes. (Insane that White Rock is this close.)

Trevor Halford on what he credited his election to: "Every morning for breakfast I have a bowl of Kam Loops and not a bowl of Fruit Loops."

And
Brenda Bailey is elected in Vancouver-False Creek over Liberal incumbent (now incum-broken) Sam Sullivan by 2,267 votes.

Brenda Bailey on what she credited her election to: "Every morning for breakfast I have a bowl of Kam Loops and not a bowl of Fruit Loops."

Also
New Democrat Harwinder Sandhu is elected in Vernon-Monashee over Liberal incumbent Eric Foster by 424 votes.  

Harwinder Sandhu on what she credited her election to: "Every morning for breakfast I have a bowl of fruit loops and not a bowl of Kam Loops.  I don't think there even is a cereal named Kam Loops.  As a registered nurse though I don't really recommend eating sugary cereal."

[Benjamin Frank]

There are still five ridings without final vote counts: Courtney-Comox, Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Penticton, Saanich South and Vancouver-Fairview.  However, none of the leads in any of these five ridings will change over with whatever is left to be counted.

The only other riding of significance in regard with the mail in votes I'm not sure I've mentioned is Vancouver-Langara where Liberal Michael Lee was re-elected.  He not only increased his margin of victory over the initial count, he was one of a handful of Liberals to increase his vote percentage from the election day count to the final count.

With the likely tiny number of votes still to be added into the final count, Elections B.C reports the total valid votes at 1,882,392, which is higher than was expected to be the final total and not that far off from 2017.

The party percentages right now are (with these handful of additional votes still to come)
NDP: 47.7%
Liberal: 33.8
Green 15.1

This is a slightly better vote percentage for the Liberals than in 1991, but, then, the Gordon Wilson B.C Liberals of 1991 aren't really the same party they are now.

Also, given the drubbing the pollsters took again in the United States, a 14% NDP win is right inline with what the polling showed in British Columbia.

[Benjamin Frank]

KEY RACE ALERT

Liberal Jordan Sturdy is now ahead of Green Jeremy Valeriote by 41 votes in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.

The only marginal compensation for the Greens should they lose that riding is that Sonia Furstenau has increased her lead to 1,184.

KEY RACE UPDATE:
Apparently all the votes have been counted and Jordan Sturdy has won by 41 votes.  I'm sure they'll be a recount.

https://www.nsnews.com/news/in-a-surprise-twist-liberals-hold-on-to-west-vancouver-sea-to-sky-by-41-votes-1.24235356

How did this happen? I thought this was the riding that they'd called because there weren't enough mail-in votes to flip it?

Oh that.   No, that was based on one reporter from the CBC and that person just got their facts wrong. That was recognized shortly after.

[Benjamin Frank]

This is how the mail-in and other absentee votes went:

Total 672,695
NDP: 352,523, 52.4%
Lib:   208,249, 31.0
Green: 98,813, 14.7