BC Election on October 24th

[DC Al Fine]

I'll throw another one out there. In 2006 NS Tory leader Rodney MacDonald called a snap election in hopes of turning a minority into a majority. He increased his vote share from 36% to 40% but somehow managed to lose two seats. Not a wipeot, but a big oof nonetheless.

[DC Al Fine]

I have a very bad feeling about this.

I also have a bad feeling... for the right. We'll have to see who's right in a few weeks

[DC Al Fine]

I wonder if Horgan (and possibly Trudeau?) learned the wrong lesson from Higgs' victory. That is, Higgs called a snap election in largely COVID-free New Brunswick and was rewarded. Horgan seems to have taken the lesson that the pandemic has given him a bump in the polls assuring him victory, but I wonder if what really sealed the deal for Higgs was being free of COVID...

[DC Al Fine]

If somehow, the BC Conservatives get around 15%, would they get a seat?

Depends on the quality of candidates. They could realistically only ever hope to win one of the Peace River ridings.

I can picture a candidate-driven Okanagan pickup as well.

Yes, that's the issue with doing projections when one party is going from near-zero to a sizeable portion of the vote. We don't have any baseline support to work with so we can only make educated guesses about areas of strength, how efficient their vote is, etc etc.

The same goes in reverse when a party collapses e.g. A 1993 projection would find very different results for the Tories than who actually survived.

[DC Al Fine]

Brand new poll from Ipsos has the BC NDP leading by 18 points

BC NDP - 51%
BC Libs - 33%
BC Greens - 12%
Other - 4%

*Low whistle*

[DC Al Fine]

Fringe party candidates thus far per Wiki:

Conservative: 7
Libertarian: 6
Communist: 5
Christian Heritage: 2
Plus a smattering of one offs.

The Conservative resurgence decidedly did not pan out. Also I see the Greens only have ~45. Not a good sign.

[DC Al Fine]

Fringe party candidates thus far per Wiki:

Conservative: 7
Libertarian: 6
Communist: 5
Christian Heritage: 2
Plus a smattering of one offs.

The Conservative resurgence decidedly did not pan out. Also I see the Greens only have ~45. Not a good sign.

The official fillings are even more barren (except for Libertarians).

NDP: 64/87
Liberal: 62/87
Green: 26/87
Libertarian: 11
Conservative: 3
Christian Heritage: 2
Vision: 1
Independent: 1

Wait, isn't the filing deadline tomorrow?! And the Greens only have a quarter slate? That's terrible for a party trying to be a major player. I wonder if the Libs or NDP will miss a full slate as well?

EDIT: I noticed there are no Social Credit candidates this time

[DC Al Fine]

What are the final candidate scores?

Nominations don't close for another several hours. Bloody west coast time difference

[DC Al Fine]

What about ridings with a Conservative but no Green?

Three:

Boundary-Similkameen and the two Peace River ridings. First one will be interesting, the latter two will be Liberal snoozers.

[DC Al Fine]

Is this the first time an incumbent has had to step down during an election? In a "safe" seat too (I suppose it was going to be close this time though)

Sure there have been other, but would have to dig back in history quite a ways.  Closest I can think of was Derek Zeisman in British Columbia Southern Interior in 2006.  This was a conservative held riding, but Jim Gouk, outgoing MP retired.  Conservative candidate Derek Zeisman was dropped by Harper after story surfaced he had smuggled booze over the border.  NDP flipped the riding and interestingly enough have held it since.

Wait, that's drop worthy?

I thought everyone who lived close to the border did that.

[DC Al Fine]

I stumbled upon a neat CBC article: 10 ridings to watch in B.C. on election night

Of course both Maple Ridge ridings are #1 and #2. lol

Also an interesting factoid:  "The NDP hasn't won a seat in Richmond since 1972."

CBC is notorious for that nonsense. They take close ridings from the previous election and call them ridings to watch with zero regard for changes in polling. 2015 was really bad for it. They were calling seats that the Liberals won by 5 in their worst result ever "ridings to watch", when Trudeau was in the lead

Like geez, if you're going to pay Eric Grenier all that money to model elections, at least talk to him before producing that silly article

[DC Al Fine]

Another good example: In 2019 CBC called Calgary Centre a riding to watch and a "Liberal-Tory battleground". On election day, the Tories won the seat by 30%.

Edit:
Calgary

Liberals won by 1% in 2015
+ Modest national swing against government
+ Huge regional trend against government
+ Incumbent fired from cabinet for sexual harassment

Yeah, I don't think anyone in the Tory or Liberal camps were spending much time worrying about the result of that race.

[DC Al Fine]

Canada 2021: Trudeau is caught in bed with a dead girl and a live boy mid-campaign.

CBC: Cumberland-Colchester is a riding to watch on election night guys!... guys?

[DC Al Fine]

What's the speculated mail in vote %'s?