BURSTWith five parties fielding incumbent candidates in the upcoming provincial election, anxiety about vote-splitting has taken on a whole new dimension.
In recent years, the NDP worried most often about a third-party challenger, with viable left-wing candidates running for the B.C. Greens in many ridings.
But after two years of turmoil within the B.C. Conservative Party, more challengers have popped up, including CentreBC, a moderate vehicle helmed by former Conservative Elenore Sturko, and OneBC, a far-right party led by former Conservative Dallas Brodie.
According to recent polling averages compiled by 338Canada, Conservatives lead overall, 45 per cent to the NDP’s 42 per cent. The Green Party trails with nine per cent, and the combined OneBC and CentreBC support sits between two and seven per cent.
For this average of several polls, 338 allows for a possible four per cent swing either way for the top two parties.
These polls only tell part of the story. Forecasting which party will form government is difficult by polling just the overall vote, according to Royal Roads University political communications professor David Black.
“We have 93 mini-elections that generate this complex outcome we call government,” he said.
Mario Canseco of the polling firm Research Co. points out that none of the smaller parties are running in every riding, either, which makes provincial polling inaccurate because some supporters won’t be able to choose those parties on their ballots.
But in competitive ridings where both CentreBC and OneBC are fielding candidates, he says the Conservative Party could have reason to worry.
“The presence of these parties that are taking some votes that considerably would have gone Conservative might enable the NDP to win some seats with 37, 38 per cent of the vote,” he said.
This is the case in several Surrey ridings. Surrey has ten ridings, seven of which could be toss-ups. Many analysts expect control of the government to come down to which party does better in Surrey.
Canseco also says a strong single candidate could swing a riding in an unexpected direction. He gave the example of Vancouver-Quilchena, a traditional right-wing seat held by OneBC Leader Brodie.
The NDP is running Callista Ryan in the riding, the same person as in 2024, while the Conservatives are running Carson Binda of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Canseco calculates that if Brodie gets 10 to 12 per cent of the vote and Ryan performs similarly to 2024 (she got 38.91 per cent of the vote), the NDP has a shot at taking the seat.
A wild card in all of this is how committed B.C. voters are to the Conservative brand. This is only the second election in almost a century that the B.C. Conservative Party had a feasible shot at winning, and very recently the party nearly broke apart under former leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay.
“If this was a reliable, known, long-standing vehicle for the centre-right that was ideologically coherent and organizationally recognizable, then I would worry less about a vote-splitting,” Black said.
That being said, Black says the Conservatives still appear to have an edge, and the NDP will need strategic votes from some people who would otherwise vote Green or CentreBC.
“The NDP’s best shot at pulling this off, and they’re currently losing this election, is if those Green voters, and to a lesser extent maybe CentreBC voters, but certainly Green voters, vote strategically and park their vote, holding their nose, with the NDP,” he said.
This could be a possibility. Canseco’s polling found that those who say they want to vote Green are less committed than the supporters of other parties.
“A closer race doesn’t really benefit the Greens, because they might be losing some of their traditional vote to people who want to stop a Conservative government,” he said.
NDP Leader David Eby appears concerned that a large Green Party could hand the election to Conservatives, calling on Green voters last weekend to work with the NDP to avoid a Conservative government.
B.C. Green Party Leader Emily Lowan pushed back.
“We look at the numbers; we know that the BC Greens grow the vote; we don’t split the vote,” she said.
Eby is clearly ready for a nail-biter.
“I think that what the polls do illustrate for me, and what I hope they illustrate for British Columbia, is that this election is going to be very close,” he said.