There is only about a week left to the campaign. So here are a lot of numbers giving you the situation at the begninning of this last week. In a nutshell: the BC Liberals have climbed back quite a bit, but for now, it isn't enough to prevent the BC NDP to regain power in the province. However, polls are now close enough that watching eleciton night might provide some suspense and surprises. If you want the latest projections, you can find them here.
|
Outcome
|
Probability
|
|
NDP victory
|
92%
|
|
NDP majority
|
90%
|
|
NDP with 70
seats or more
|
0.1%
|
|
NDP with 50
seats or less
|
41%
|
|
Lib with 20
seats or less
|
7.0%
|
|
Lib with 30
seats or less
|
44%
|
|
Cons with at
least 1 seat
|
11%
|
|
Green with at
least 1 seat
|
36%
|
|
NDP wins
popular vote, Lib wins most seats
|
5%
|
|
|
|
|
|
Seats
|
|
Min Liberals
|
12
|
|
Max Liberals
|
52
|
|
Max Conservative
|
3
|
|
Max green
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other
|
|
Chances of
Christy Clark being elected
|
78%
|
|
# riding
where one party is projected to win 100% of the time
|
32
(26 NDP, 6 Lib)
|
Looking simply at the number of seats tells a big part of the story, but comparing this table to the previous one really shows how much uncertainty has been added in the last two weeks with the rise of the Liberals. We went from a sure win, sure majority for Adrian Dix to a situation where the Liberlas could potentially wins a majority (unlikely but possible).
The last week will really be crucial for the four parties. For the NDP, the game plan remains essentially the same: avoid making mistake, avoid scaring away some centrists voters and hope that the polls don't turn as wrong as they were in Alberta. For the Liberals and Christy Clark, it'll all about getting the vote out in the key ridings. But no matter how much effort they put into that, they'll still need a little help (in the sense that the polls must have been wrong).
The Green are difficult to predict. Province-wide, they are increasing but they are not running candidates in many ridings. But for them, it's less about the province than some key ridings. I'm really disappointed we never saw some riding-level polls on Vancouver Island (or I missed them). Right now, the model gives a bonus to Andrew Weaver. That is the only bonus and I'll look at that very carefully for my final projections. But Green supportes shouldn't get their hopes too high as all the polls have showns the NDP clearly leading on Vancouver Island.
Finally, for the BC Conservatives, the campaign hasn't been very good. They've had controversies, candidates who had to withdraw or forgot to register correctly with Election BC, etc etc. They are mostly stable in the polls except in the most recent Ipsos where they lose 4 points. In my opinion, this party is currently overestimated in the polls and will receive less than 10% of the vote. It could be enough for a couple of seats depending on the regional distribution of the votes. If it's heavily concentrated in Kelowna for instance, they could end up with 3 MLAs. But currently the most likely scenario is for this party not to get any.
