BC Election 2013

A poll released by Angus Reid / Vision Critical, conducted from September 8 to September 9 sampled 805 people. (Their link, local link).

Voter support:

NDP – 48%
BC Liberal – 25%
Greens – 13%
Conservatives – 8%
Others – 6%

There is nothing too different with these numbers compared to previous months. The BC Liberals have pretty much eroded to core support, and it would be a good question to see how strong that support actually is. Just as a barometer, the NDP in 2001 (whom the entire province wanted to kick out of office at the election) earned 21.6% of the vote.

The regional split:

Lower Mainland: NDP 43 / BCL 29 / GRN 13 / CON 7
Vancouver Island: NDP 63 / BCL 16 / GRN 10 / CON 4
Interior: NDP 41 / BCL 25 / GRN 18 / CON 12
North: NDP 48 / BCL 19 / GRN 12 / CON 11

Extrapolating all of this data into a seat count, I would estimate the NDP would win likely over 65 seats in the election. I have contacted the pollster to see if I can get more information on the regional split numbers. I am working on a slightly more sophisticated seat model, so I do not want to give exact projections since my previous projections were still aligned in the 2009 election world, which may not translate accurately into 2013.

That said, sample sizes for the regional split (other than the seat-rich Lower Mainland, where you can assume half the sample was taken) should be taken with large error bars. The noticeable data point is 18% support for the Greens in the Interior, which if true puts them in seat striking range if they can arrange an amenable four-way split in a riding (e.g. Vernon-Monashee would be ripe for this, especially given the 2009 result).

HST Questions

62% said they would want the HST repeal sent to a referendum, while 24% would want it in the legislature for a vote of the MLAs. I do not think most people are aware that the result of a winning referendum is that the bill gets sent to the legislature for potentially a vote of the MLAs (government house leader must call it up for debate in order for there to be a vote on the matter). Without this background information, the result of the poll would likely be different. I would not put too much weight on this.

If there is a referendum, not surprisingly, 70% would vote to abolish the HST, 18% would keep it, and 12% are undecided. If you get rid of the 12% and just extrapolate the “abolish the HST” voters (70%/(70%+18%)) you get 79.5% in support of abolishing the HST, while 20.5% would be against it. Intuitively this sounds about right (although I’d suspect the actual result would be contingent upon ballot questions and other conditions in September 2011).