BC Political Discussion: Election 2020 and Beyond

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Wilkinson's goose is cooked. It will be interesting to see if the BC Liberals fracture into 2 parties again.

As for the NDP, just praying they keep their recent centrist ways. Please no 90s NDP mad with power.

Likewise. Otherwise, it will be Ontario (between 2014 and 2018) on replay.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

As much as I dislike NDP (which might change now that they have a majority mandate), I lowkey hope Henry wins simply because he used to be my boss (more like supervisor).

Yeah, I've met him and he seems like a nice, down to earth guy. Plus Alexa Loo has been on the wrong side of too many council votes in Richmond.

However all the mail in ballots worry me. They would likely be seniors who skew BC Liberal.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Yeah, I've met him and he seems like a nice, down to earth guy. Plus Alexa Loo has been on the wrong side of too many council votes in Richmond.

However all the mail in ballots worry me. They would likely be seniors who skew BC Liberal.

Likely the opposite. Often mail-in ballots skew NDP. This is obviously a different scenario with the pandemic, but the 2 polls that had results on early voter preferences showed the NDP with a much larger lead among people who already voted.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Wilkinson's goose is cooked. It will be interesting to see if the BC Liberals fracture into 2 parties again.

As for the NDP, just praying they keep their recent centrist ways. Please no 90s NDP mad with power.

Yes, the NDP need to tread lightly. Some of their wins come down to vote-splitting between the Cons and Libs. If that demographic unites against them, focusing on a single party, they will lose those seats unless further demographic shifts are enough to keep them afloat.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Yes, the NDP need to tread lightly. Some of their wins come down to vote-splitting between the Cons and Libs. If that demographic unites against them, focusing on a single party, they will lose those seats unless further demographic shifts are enough to keep them afloat.

I don't see many riding results where the Liberal and Conservative votes combined would have been enough to beat the NDP. The Conservatives didn't run in most places, and in the 19 ridings that they did run, they generally performed relatively poorly. It looks like the Green candidate was in second place behind the NDP in some places. Obviously we won't know what the real outcome is for about 3 weeks when the other 800,000+ votes are added.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I don't see many riding results where the Liberal and Conservative votes combined would have been enough to beat the NDP. The Conservatives didn't run in most places, and in the 19 ridings that they did run, they generally performed relatively poorly. It looks like the Green candidate was in second place behind the NDP in some places. Obviously we won't know what the real outcome is for about 3 weeks when the other 800,000+ votes are added.

Exactly.

If you look at the popular results as left vs right, even being generous to the right still gives it something like a 60 left / 40 right split.

[memememe76]

And not every Liberal voter would vote Conservative, not even a majority perhaps. An urban liberal voter may not be as comfortable voting for Liberal if they were so more overtly aligned with Conservative social values. Looking at federal results, if BC stands out from the other provinces, we are unpredictable and more likely to vote for nontraditional parties.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I don't see many riding results where the Liberal and Conservative votes combined would have been enough to beat the NDP. The Conservatives didn't run in most places, and in the 19 ridings that they did run, they generally performed relatively poorly. It looks like the Green candidate was in second place behind the NDP in some places. Obviously we won't know what the real outcome is for about 3 weeks when the other 800,000+ votes are added.

True, I guess I was extrapolating too much from a handful of ridings. If the Libs kill and subsume the Cons they could take 4-5 more seats.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by memememe76

And not every Liberal voter would vote Conservative, not even a majority perhaps. An urban liberal voter may not be as comfortable voting for Liberal if they were so more overtly aligned with Conservative social values.

Yes, it’s more about the Cons realizing they have no option but to play nice and fall more in line with Liberal norms if they want to move the needle to the right overall.

[SpongeG]

for those who voted, how many candidates/options were on your ballot?

in my riding, we had three choices, NDP, Liberal or Greens. It seems some ridings had Conservative candidates running but not in every riding. And it looked like some areas only had two choices.

[bluefox]

A few takeaways from election night:

• Turnout was really low. Realize we're in a pandemic but people had lots of options to take part safely. It looks like after counting mailed-in votes we'll be somewhere around 52% turnout. Not good.
• The rural-urban divide is even wider than it was in 2017. Pretty wild to see how many places have further entrenched to the right despite the province-wide results, and that will be a big challenge for Horgan to keep interior BCers feeling represented by this government. I was actually surprised to see seats like Skeena, Fraser-Nicola and Columbia River-Revelstoke not go back to the NDP, though obviously in Fraser-Nicola they continue to have a gong-show locally and Harry Lali is a big reason for that disarray.
• That low turnout seems to have distorted vote shares -- NDP and Liberals both seem to have underperformed their poll numbers by a few points, while Greens and Conservatives overperformed. Especially in the seats the Conservatives ran candidates, that distortion seems to have contributed to NDP wins more than it otherwise would have.
• Looks like a surge of Green support on the mainland (albeit in some areas) got missed or was unexpected. Even though they did well in Sea to Sky, Nelson-Creston, Vernon-Monashee, etc. last time, I was very surprised to see how competitive they were in those areas, let alone winning a seat over here. Good for them as they try to move on from the Weaver era.
• The BC Liberals REALLY took suburban voters for granted, like... really really. This campaign was a total miscalculation for them, they managed to hold the line in rural BC very well but at the expense of a massive orange wave through basically the whole Lower Mainland, and now they're shut out of the island completely if the numbers in Parksville hold up. But it was also stated on Twitter by a few folks that they are really the authors of their own demise, because their housing policies effectively pushed a lot of NDP supporters and moderate Liberals into the suburbs where housing was more affordable, and now are reaping what they sowed in that respect because the platform this time also didn't resonate. Not sure to what extent that is true but it's definitely feasible.

Quite a wild night and definitely more of a "generational" election than I think people were expecting, given how much the landscape has shifted. The next four years are going to be a very interesting time in BC politics IMO. I could definitely see a split in the BC Liberals or a rebranding and I think that latter idea has more legs than it did during Christy's time. Wilkinson's toast either way. Ironically if the Liberals hadn't fought PR tooth and nail, and the referendum had succeeded, a split into two parties might not have been so bad for them in the long run.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

for those who voted, how many candidates/options were on your ballot?

in my riding, we had three choices, NDP, Liberal or Greens. It seems some ridings had Conservative candidates running but not in every riding. And it looked like some areas only had two choices.

I had three choices. I just scrolled through the candidates list and there were only three ridings with only two choices.

The Conservatives only ran 19 candidates vs 25 Libertarian (and 5 Christian Heritage Party). That's not a lot for 87 ridings - and they did run against each other in some places so it's not like they covered 49 ridings between them.

[zahav]

I am blown away by the NDP's performance. It is them winning the or being competitive in super BC Lib ridings that shocked me most. Maybe taking 3/4 of Richmond, 2 on North Shore (and a possible Green, meaning the Libs only took 1/4 north shore ridings?!), plus all of Langley, the tri-cities, Burnaby, most of Van, Surrey, Maple Ridge, and out to Abbotsford and Chilliwack?! So insane, I really never thought I'd see that. And for all those alleging right wing vote splitting, that just highlights my point. In the old days, the NDP wouldn't even be in contention, even with BC Cons and Libs running, it still wouldn't matter! BC Cons have been around for ages, and their vote splitting was inconsequential, the right wing vote was just that dominant. The fact that NDP did as well as they did, even in ridings they did'nt win, they still has a shockingly good showing. That certainly does paint and interesting picture of what is happening demographically in these areas AND how Horgan truly does have a lot of support, no matter which way you cut it. You don't get results like this in the seat distribution if you don't have widespread support, it just wouldn't happen statitcially. It is a resounding endoresement.

I have posted several times about being a lifeling BC Lib supporter and never ever would've dreamed of voting NDP before, ever! But this election was different and it's intersting to see other posters say the same thing. And apparently we are not alone in that thinking, as results show. This article is a good summar:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...rgan-1.5776167

[logicbomb]

Well I was wrong. I was against the PST change and removal of some taxes. I guess many saw the light in thay regards.

AW is perhaps the worst provincial candidate we have seen in our lifetime. A guy that cannot be relateable and has a seemingly smug arrogant vibe to him. The liberals need to go younger and modernize and kick all these dinosaurs to the curb.

[whatnext]

One thing I don’t get is why the media is painting the Greens performance as some sort of great achievement. Though they picked up a seat on the Lower Mainland they lost Oak Bay which Weaver had held for years. Their share of the popular vote is largely unchanged from 2017. While earnest, Furstenau isn’t particularly dynamic.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by whatnext

One thing I don’t get is why the media is painting the Greens performance as some sort of great achievement. Though they picked up a seat on the Lower Mainland they lost Oak Bay which Weaver had held for years. Their share of the popular vote is largely unchanged from 2017. While earnest, Furstenau isn’t particularly dynamic.

I looked them up and they started in 1893 and didn't get anyone elected until 2013 with Andrew Weaver. Then in 2017 they got three people elected. This time they also got three people elected, despite Weaver supporting the NDP in his riding (so it's not that big of a surprise the NDP won it). Plus apparently Sonia Furstenau did well in the debate (I didn't watch).

[Migrant_Coconut]

Yeah, weren't we all expecting the Greens to go extinct again without Weaver in charge?

[memememe76]

The Liberals kept mentioning that this was an election that no one wanted. Whether true or not, it certainly does not motivate people to vote. I guess it’s not like in the US where low voter turnout means a more conservative result. In this case, it seems voter turnout in BC reflects whether people want change or not.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by whatnext

One thing I don’t get is why the media is painting the Greens performance as some sort of great achievement. Though they picked up a seat on the Lower Mainland they lost Oak Bay which Weaver had held for years. Their share of the popular vote is largely unchanged from 2017. While earnest, Furstenau isn’t particularly dynamic.

they were second in quite a few places, it sounds like their support has gone up while listening to the coverage on the radio last night.
Now it's up to the NDP to see if they can remain a legit party apparently, they could have any party status or funding taken away by the provincial government.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by whatnext

One thing I don’t get is why the media is painting the Greens performance as some sort of great achievement. Though they picked up a seat on the Lower Mainland they lost Oak Bay which Weaver had held for years. Their share of the popular vote is largely unchanged from 2017. While earnest, Furstenau isn’t particularly dynamic.

It's because they were expected to be wiped out, as the junior player propping up a minority. Instead, they mostly held their vote and even won a seat from the hapless Liberals. While the NDP still took a seat from them, they were able to take a seat from the Liberals. The NDP won, the Greens held their own, the Liberals were devoured from all sides. Given the expectations, that is a good result for the Greens. Their 3 seat caucus was probably saved due to Furstenau's solid performance.