BC Election on October 24th

[DC Al Fine]

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

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/cbcnewsbc/status/1320834716984053761?s=20

Elections have consequences, etc, etc.

[King of Kensington]

So what direction will the BC Liberals go?

[Jeppe]

So what direction will the BC Liberals go?

I feel like it’ll be Michael Lee vs an interior candidate like Todd Stone.

[mileslunn]

So what direction will the BC Liberals go?

That is a tough one and actually I think best to wait and see how things unfold.  I think pandemic has really pushed people leftward so I don't see right wing policies being winnable anywhere.  Yes right wing governments like Ford who are in power can win, but right now no one cares about tax cuts or deficits.  However once bills come due, I believe fiscal conservatism will make a comeback, but just how big and how far is anyone's guess.

One thing that is clear, BC Liberals largely held onto those who vote federal Tory asides from maybe Peace River country and Fraser Valley where some went BC Conservative and in latter was fatal while in former didn't matter as Peace River country hates NDP and is more Albertan than British Columbian in politics (really it should join Alberta).  However, it looks like those who voted federal Liberal and BC Liberal in past swung over to NDP.

I don't think BC Liberals need to be as left as Trudeau, that will ensure a split, but I do think they need to yes still be for lower taxes, pro business, and balanced budgets, but at same time have a strong climate plan, a plan to deal with affordability, and a poverty plan.  Millennials due to high cost of living are facing challenges boomers did not and thus past policies of winning based on class no longer really works.  True the very rich still voting BC Liberal thus why West Vancouver-Capilano and Vancouver-Quilchena stayed BC Liberal at over 50%, but your upper middle class areas like Vancouver-False Creek, Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, and North Vancouver-Seymour have flipped.

BC Liberals need to stand for something not against.  Reality is BC Liberals were really an uneasy coalition of people with a common enemy.  A lot like Democrats in US now where you have Lincoln Project and John Kasich types in same party as AOC and Bernie Sanders due to common enemy.  Since NDP hasn't been a disaster like 90s that is no longer feasible.  But if the party finds a common cause to unite people for, its possible to build another big tent coalition.  NDP did this not by uniting all those who BC Liberals (after all they won over many traditional BC Liberal supporters), but uniting people who felt they delivered good governance.

[Oryxslayer]

There's also power to waiting if one expects Ottawa to have a shakeup in the near future. There are rumors of Trudeau wanting to replicate Horgan and Higgs's success next year, but of course there is the potential of that 'bill coming due' and govt changing hands if voters go to the polls. Either adjustments in govt would change how the parties approach the voters.

[adma]

Why did Chilliwack go NDP?

A few reasons:

1. General province wide swing and a rising tide raises all ships
2. Vote splits - there were Conservative and Independent candidates in both Chilliwack seats
3. Chilliwack is changing a lot. It used to be a Fraser Valley Bible belt town...now its become more of an exurb of Vancouver and young families who can't afford housing closer in are moving there - so its a totally different place than it used to be

Though Abbotsford remains elusive--then again, that may be illusory, given how the NDP shares in the Abbotsford seats were comparable to those in the Chilliwack seats; it's just that the Libs were more capable of "holding their vote" there (though Ab-Mission could still flip with the mail-ins).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's been a substantial upper working/lower middle class outflow from points further in the Vancouver metropolitan area to that general region for a while - it's just that it's rarely had electoral consequences because people like that as likely to buy the 'vote for stability and against those incompetent radicals' as middle class conservatives. But when that card is useless...

[StateBoiler]

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

[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.

[H. Ross Peron]

Are there any provincial NDP/federal Tory voters?

[mileslunn]

Are there any provincial NDP/federal Tory voters?

A few but not many.  Now it depends what election you are referring to.  If you mean people who voted Tory in 2011 and NDP provincially in 2020, yes lots of them.  It appears to me most Tory 2011 - Liberal 2015 voters stuck with BC Liberals in 2017, but then flipped to NDP in 2020.  Tories got 46% in 2011 so while no doubt voters who weren't of age and those moving into province probably make replicating that a little harder; I doubt province has changed that much.  So its likely amongst that group some did vote NDP.

I think the Tory base who always vote Tory, few vote NDP provincially.  But amongst those who are swing voters and sometimes vote Tory federally but not all the time; many voted NDP.  That group are largely pragmatists who don't really care about ideological labels and are more concerned with good governance and good policies, so will vote for parties on both left and right depending on leader and platform. 

[King of Kensington]

At some point, it's pretty hard to imagine Justin Trudeau supporters and Stockwell Day supporters staying under one tent, particularly with cultural fault lines replacing class ones.

[mileslunn]

At some point, it's pretty hard to imagine Justin Trudeau supporters and Stockwell Day supporters staying under one tent, particularly with cultural fault lines replacing class ones.

Agreed divide is pretty big, but I do think divide always existed and it was more common enemy that kept them under one tent.  So when NDP overstays welcome can form again, but may have trouble making such a long term winning coalition as opposed to just winning intermittently. 

[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.

[lilTommy]

This was shared on my FB:
"Based on the preliminary BC provincial results, I've computed the regional vote-shares by party, based on the Valid Ballots shown (general and advance). The number of mail-in ballot requests are also shown... " I don't think Elections BC released the number of returned Mail-ins yet.

[mileslunn]

This was shared on my FB:
"Based on the preliminary BC provincial results, I've computed the regional vote-shares by party, based on the Valid Ballots shown (general and advance). The number of mail-in ballot requests are also shown... " I don't think Elections BC released the number of returned Mail-ins yet.

By interesting to see comparisons with 2017, 2013, and 2009, particularly in Lower Mainland.  Drop in BC Liberal support there actually quite big over past decade.  They lost a number of ridings they were considered safe a decade ago and which they won by over 30 points in 2009.  By same token many swing or close ridings in 2009, BC Liberals lost by over 30 points.  Interior much less of a swing, if anything increased in 2013 and 2017 and only a slight drop this time.  Vancouver Island while never strong for BC Liberals, also fallen a lot and now in third place. 

[njwes]

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?

[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.

[King of Kensington]

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.

And voters in the once-safe Liberal bastion of Point Grey responded in kind.  It's pretty much the University-Rosedale of BC now.

[King of Kensington]

Over the 16 years that he ran successfully to represent the East Kootenays in the B.C. legislature, nothing irritated Bill Bennett more than having to explain to people that no, the provincial Liberals were not federal Liberals, they just had the same name.

“There are a lot of passionate conservative types in this neck of the woods,” Mr. Bennett told me on the phone this week. “And they hated, literally hated, the idea of marking a ballot for a political party that had the world Liberal in it.”

Before retiring, Mr. Bennett was one of the most influential voices in the BC Liberal cabinet before the party was bounced from office in 2017. Now, the party has been trounced in the recent election, and Mr. Bennett believes the Liberals need to renew and reset – and that this must include a name change.

This isn’t the first time that a rebrand under a more inclusive-sounding moniker has been mooted. It was a topic of discussion in the 1990s when the party found itself on the outside looking in while the NDP ruled British Columbia. It was revived again in 2011, when Christy Clark took over from Gordon Campbell. Her deep ties to the federal Liberals bothered many conservatives, both inside and outside the caucus. But nothing happened.

While this motley collection of federal Conservatives and Liberals flourished as the so-called free-enterprise option to the “socialist” New Democrats, it rankled conservatives they had to exist under the Liberal banner. It bothered conservative-minded voters as well, but there was no other realistic option.

So here we are now.

Mr. Bennett points to the Saskatchewan Party as the best example of how a name change helped the political fortunes of liberals and conservatives in that province. When the party was founded in the late 1990s by former Conservative and Liberal MLAs, the regional Conservative brand was in tatters as a result of an expenses scandal. The NDP looked poised for a long run in power. But by 2007, under the leadership of Brad Wall, the Saskatchewan Party took over and has never looked back.

The BC Liberals have a much bigger challenge. The divides the party needs to bridge are more than simply rural-urban; deeper ideological differences often flow from those two solitudes.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-whats-in-a-name-for-bcs-liberals-the-answer-could-be-its/

[Tintrlvr]

I think rebranding would be a mistake; the "Liberal" brand helps a lot in urban areas to convince/deceive (depending on your point of view) voters into believing they are a moderate/centrist (for some particularly low-information voters, maybe even left-of-center) option. The BC Liberals don't need the extra support in rural areas, but they do need it in the cities.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, I saw a poll that came out today that said that plurality of federal Liberals still backed the BC Liberals (a bit of a dubious notion TBH). Duping low information voters is probably helping more than it's hurting. I will become a problem if the Conservatives ever both to run a full slate, though.

[lilTommy]

How likely are we to see a split it in the BC Liberals?

We know Bennett in Kootenay East would likely side with a more conservative minded Party; The biggest competition to the BCLiberals in Peace River North and Peace River South is already the BCConservatives (both won over 30% of the votes there)

A split might not necessarily be bad either; we have now the BCNDP with a more natural ally in the BC Greens if we ever get to a minority situation again. The BCLiberals do not have such an ally... yet. Is their a chance we see these three MLAs become sitting BCConservatives? (say if the BCLiberals new leadership try and maintain this more moderate right-of-centre approach)