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).

An Angus Reid Poll, July 26 to 28, 2010; 800 sampled (their copy, local copy) has the following results:

Voting intention:
NDP – 48%
BC Liberal – 27%
Green – 13%
Conservatives – 6%
Others – 6%

The regional split numbers are not too dissimilar from the previous month’s poll, as well as the core results. The only news here is that the lack of change would suggest that there has not been a “simmering down” of public opinion with respect to the HST implementation, and this is likely to continue.

The poll does ask, in separate questions, “If Carole Taylor/Diane Watts became leader of the BC Liberal Party, how would you vote?”, and their results were roughly similar, with the NDP winning about 43% to BCL 34%. I think the only conclusion you can take from this is that the Premier is, not surprisingly, a drag on the popular support of the overall party. This is not unique to this term in office, but it is especially pronounced now since his own personal popularity has fallen off the Grand Canyon, with 14% approving and 75% disapproving of his performance. Interestingly enough, Carole James is not a hotbed of favouritism either, with 28% approving and 39% not approving.

An Angus Reid Public Opinion poll (their copy, local copy), conducted from July 6 to July 8, sample size 801 people has the following results for voting intention:

NDP: 46%
BC Liberal: 23%
Greens: 14%
Conservatives: 8%

This is the biggest polling differential between the two parties since the 2001 election. The regional split is the following:

Lower Mainland: NDP 41 / BCL 28 / GRN 16 / CON 8
Vancouver Island: NDP 67 / BCL 7 / GRN 12 / CON 5
Southern Interior: NDP 43 / BCL 21 / GRN 13 / CON 11
Northern Interior: NDP 36 / BCL 26 / GRN 13 / CON 12

Extrapolating all of this data into a seat count, I would estimate:

NDP – 66
BCL – 18
IND – 1 (Vicki Huntington, Delta South)

The BC Conservatives would possibly have a chance at two seats (the regional split now makes Boundary-Similkameen a probable NDP seat, compared to the poll before which makes it a probable seat for the Conservatives, while the Peace River area would also have a chance for a Conservative seat, although not probable), and the model assumes Vicki Huntington runs in Delta South again. The model also assumes that there is no change between now and 2.8 years from now, when the next fixed election date is presently.

Note I say “presently” since I find it will be extremely likely that the government will vote to change its fixed election date to the autumn, extending its life by another 5 months. They will claim (validly) that it is to fix the issue with supplementary estimates in an election year – it creates an unnecessary amount of work.

A new Angus Reid Public Opinion Poll (their link, local copy), taken from June 1 to June 6, 2010 and with a sample space of 1,612 people has the following findings:

Voter intention:
NDP 46%
BC Liberal 26%
Green 14%
BC Conservatives 8%

The geographical split (note numbers are NDP/BCL/GRN/CON, and without any split of the representative sample, and the number of ridings in [square brackets]):

GVRD [46]: 46/27/15/5
Vancouver Island [15]: 54/18/16/9
Interior [16]: 43/30/7/16
North [8]: 34/35/18/7

I am a little suspicious at the “North” number of 18% support for the Greens, as this does not intuitively jive up with historical results of the area (traditionally, Green party support in this area has been weak). The definition of “North” that Angus Reid Public Opinion used for the 2009 election was “… the six ridings along highway 16 and the two in the peace”.

Given this vote distribution, a seat projection would be roughly:

NDP: 62
BC Liberal: 21
Conservative: 1 (Boundary-Similkameen would be in contention)
Ind: 1 (Delta South – the poll doesn’t reflect this, but this would obviously be the case)

Please note this is only a mathematical projection given vote differentials and I did not do any “fine tuning” other than the Delta South insertion. It is far more likely there will be considerable vote volatility in the Interior/North seats of the province.

Mustel has a poll out with the following attributes:

500 polled; 12% undecided, May 6-16, 2010:

(Details)

NDP 44%
BC Liberal 32%
Green 13%
BC Conservatives 7%
Other 3%

The results are self-explanatory. However, the sample size is small enough to the point that one can’t really make any more inferences than they could with the previous Angus Reid poll, which had roughly the same results.

If an election were held with this popular vote, I’d estimate the NDP would get around a 60 seat government, and BC Liberals 25 seats. I still don’t see any seats for the Greens or the Conservatives. As the Green party has diffuse voter concentration (especially with their largest strengths around West Vancouver and the Gulf Islands / Sooke area), I’d start taking them as serious contenders for seats at around 15% provincially, while the Conservatives are more concentrated (i.e. having no presence whatsoever on Vancouver Island and the GVRD) and I’d start taking them seriously for seats at around 10% provincially. These results are very close to the point where they might be able to grab seats in 2013, but there are a lot of political dynamics that have yet to be played out between now and then. In particular, a measuring stick would be a by-election in a Green or Conservative-friendly electoral district.

An Angus Reid poll, surveying 800 people from April 12 to 14, has the following voter intentions:

(Full poll results)

NDP – 47%
BC Liberal – 29%
Green – 14%
Conservative – 5%

This is not surprising considering all of the negative news out for the existing government – the two headlines mainly being the upcoming HST, Kash Heed‘s resignation due to the election scandal.

An estimated seat count, given such a popular vote result would be the NDP realizing an approximate 60 seat majority. It becomes easier to hand-pick the seats the BC Liberals could retain with such a result:

Abbotsford South
Abbotsford West
Abbotsford-Mission
Chilliwack-Hope
Coquitlam-Burke Mountain
Fort Langley-Aldergrove
Kamloops-South Thompson
Kelowna-Lake Country
Kelowna-Mission
Langley
Nechako Lakes
North Vancouver-Seymour
Peace River North
Peace River South
Prince George-Mackenzie
Richmond Centre
Richmond East
Richmond-Steveston
Surrey-Cloverdale
Surrey-White Rock
Vancouver-False Creek
Vancouver-Langara
Vancouver-Quilchena
West Vancouver-Capilano
West Vancouver-Sea to Sky
Westside-Kelowna

The only good news if you are a BC Liberal supporter is that the next election is 3 years and 1 month away (or 3 years and 7 months away if they extend the fixed election date to October), which is potentially a lot of time to perform some damage control over the political hit they are presently taking.

The other interesting question in the poll was:

Suppose a new provincial party with a centre-left ideology were created in British Columbia. Which party would you vote for in the next provincial election, scheduled for May 2013? – Decided Voters

The new party with a centre-left ideology 34%
BC New Democratic Party (NDP) 28%
BC Liberals 23%
BC Green Party 8%
Other Party / Independent 7%

Suppose a new provincial party with a centre-right ideology were created in British Columbia. Which party would you vote for in the next provincial election, scheduled for May 2013? – Decided Voters

BC New Democratic Party (NDP) 37%
The new party with a centre-right ideology 30%
BC Liberals 15%
BC Green Party 11%
Other Party / Independent 6%

The purpose of these two questions shows how supportive of the parties the electorate is – a BC Liberal supporter, asked whether they will support a centre-left party, will still support the BC Liberals 23% (compared to 27% in the general poll). About half of the voters slip to a mythical centre-right party (15% from 27%).

NDP supporters, on the other hand, if faced with a centre-right party, will migrate 10% from 47% to 37%. With a centre-left party, they will migrate from 47% to 34%. So it shows that the NDP’s voter base is a lot more solid.

A poll conducted by Angus Reid Strategies from March 13 to 15, 2010 had the following provincial results (Source Data):

NDP – 43%
BC Liberal – 35%
Green – 13%
Conservative – 6%

905 people were sampled, error factor of 3.3%.

These results are not surprising given the backlash over the HST.

Since the next election is over three years away, I doubt the government are shivering in their boots at this moment – their biggest fear at this moment is potential vote splitting if the BC Conservative party has a surge like the Wildrose Alliance has in Alberta. However, the provincial dynamics are much different in British Columbia.

Of note is the following geographic split:

GVRD – NDP 49%, BC Liberal 35%, Green 11%, Conservative 3%
Vancouver Island – NDP 44%, BC Liberal 29%, Green 20%, Conservative 5%
Interior – NDP 36%, BC Liberal 36%, Green 13%, Conservative 8%
North – NDP 28%, BC Liberal 43%, Green 7%, Conservative 18%

Reading the tea leaves, the NDP would be able to form a rough 55 seat majority government if this result materialized in a general election. Of note is the leaderless and media-unsavvy BC Conservative party being able to poll above the noise factor in the North and Interior.