British Columbia election -- increase in conservative vote -- results a virtual tie awaiting recounts in several close seats

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Posted on 10/20/2024 7:55:50 PM PDT by Peter ODonnell

The result of the Saturday (19th) provincial election in British Columbia is basically a dead heat between the social democrats (NDP) and conservatives (BC Conservative Party) with the Greens holding on to two seats and apparently the balance of power.

The results at present are 46 NDP, 45 Con and 2 Green (47 needed for a bare majority). (47 bears are needed for a bear majority)

Two to five seats are still not settled, two will definitely need a recount (by law, as results are within 100 votes) and three could still change hands when a few votes not yet counted (people absent from BC, mostly, casting ballots separately from the advance polls which are all counted). BC does not have voting machines and few people use the mail option but in any case most of those votes are counted. There are no suspicions of any fraud in this case.

Once the two to five seats are settled, it is quite possible that neither of the main parties will have a clear mandate to form a government, and will need to broker a deal with the Greens to avoid losing votes of confidence in the legislature. This was also the situation in BC from 2017 to 2020 (NDP relied on Green support to govern). From 2020 to 2024 NDP held a 57-33 majority and Greens were less relevant.

The historical context is of interest. The NDP and BC's Liberal Party traded election wins for three decades. The BC Liberals had only a vague connection to the federal Liberals and were actually more aligned with the federal Conservatives after 1995. They were socially centrist and fiscally conservative. As they began to lose traction after 2020, in part because their base saw them as caving in on COVID mandate issues), they tried a name re-brand as BC united. This backfired and they continued to lose support to the reborn Conservatives. That party had almost ceased to exist during the 1950s to 1970s when Social Credit replaced them and took their base of voters away. Social Credit waned in the 1990s and merged with the Liberals. (the name has nothing to do with the later phenomenon of Chinese "social credits")

When the BC Liberals kicked out John Rustad, a long-serving member of the Legislature and mandate opponent, he reorganized the BC Conservatives and turned them into a powerful and better focused alternative to the socialist NDP. Seeing the writing on the wall, BC united leader Kevin Falcon announced just before the election that his party would disband and not contest the election, leaving the field wide open for Rustad and the Conservatives. ... The one glitch was that a half dozen nominated BC united candidates refused to stand down, and contested their seats as independents. None of them won, but at least three prevented the Cons from winning (both their seats, and the election overall).

The Greens party leader lost her bid for re-election in a new seat in uber-liberal Victoria, but two others were successful nearby, one gaining a seat from the NDP.

In general terms, the political landscape remained almost unchanged, the coast was largely NDP with sizeable Green votes in the 15-30 per cent range, the "interior" (eastern two thirds beyond the Coast Ranges) was solidly conservative with Greens not a big factor at all. (BC is very similar to WA and OR in east-west splits and local islands of progressive cities in eastern conservative territory) ... NDP popular vote was down by less than 1% and Conservatives more or less matched better previous results of the BC Liberals. Both were in the 43-44 per cent range with the Greens at about 10% and the few obstinate independents taking the rest (even so, around 20% of vote in a few seats they contested, if all united candidates stayed in, election result would have been 60-30 or so).

Does it have any implications for pending American election? Probably, in a region very similar to liberal portions of the States, it showed (a) the progressive vote is invulnerable to change even when obvious problems exist, urban crime and disorder were only a meaningful swing vote issue in ethnic (Indo-Canadian, Chinese) voting areas. This is where the Cons picked up about ten seats, in suburban areas of Vancouver, Surrey (largely Indo-Canadian) and Richmond (75% Chinese), but in the rest of urban core seats, the NDP vote held.

Then (b) the Greens are slowly becoming less attractive to climate-influenced leftist voters who prefer to block oncoming conservative challengers rather than vote their conscience (Greens basically portrayed themselves as "really" concerned about climate, and NDP as delayers who could not be trusted on the issue, they even abandoned support for a carbon tax in a last-minute attempt to block a stampede of voters to the Conservatives). About one-third of the traditional Green voters said, "maybe so, but the prospect of a conservative win in this seat concerns us more."

It all points to the difficulty for Donald Trump to fully exploit concerns of moderate but socially progressive urban voters about security and cost of living issues. I don't have answers to suggest, other than to be frank with the voters ... "look, I know some people don't like me, but are you really safe in your home? Can you really afford the cost of radical green agenda that the alternative political opposition will try to sneak in the back door if they don't bring it through the front door?"

And as a few voters in B.C. decided, with basically the same dynamics at play, better to trust the guy you dislike, than the more popular but batshit crazy alternatives. (Obviously this applies to that small group of undecided voters, about half the population already gets this and likes their political leader anyway).

It also has implications for the 2025 Canadian federal election -- Poilievre has a path to victory but he needs to broker a deal with his vote-draining further-right opponents in the PPC who share an interest in defeating the weakened Liberals. I hope Poilievre will swallow his pride and offer Bernier (PPC leader) a deal of one or two elected members and otherwise no vote splitting. This is not yet being discussed widely in Canada but we need a deal to ensure we can end the Liberal nightmare. Canada's federal conservatives are near 40% support, and PPC is static at around 3-4%. The conservatives could win 10-20 more seats if there was no vote splitting on the right.

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