Castanet

Éric Grenier
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Dec. 03 2012, 9:07 AM EST
Last updated Monday, Dec. 03 2012, 9:17 AM EST

With less than six months to go before the next election in British Columbia, Adrian Dix’s New Democrats are on track to oust the B.C. Liberal government headed by Premier Christy Clark.

The province is scheduled to go the polls on May 14, 2013 when Ms. Clark will seek an extension of the Liberals’ 12-year stint in government. The odds that she will get that mandate are very low.

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Infographic: B.C. NDP projected to beat Liberals in next election


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Video: Adrian Dix answers reader question on what he learned working for Glen Clark


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If an election were held today, the New Democrats would capture an estimated 49 per cent of the vote, based on the latest vote projections from ThreeHundredEight.com’s forecasting model. The Liberals would take 30 per cent, while John Cummins’s B.C. Conservatives would garner 13 per cent support. Another 7 per cent of British Columbians would vote for the Greens and 2 per cent for independents and candidates from other parties.

Compared to the results of the 2009 election, when both the Liberals and NDP were headed by different leaders (Gordon Campbell and Carole James, respectively), this represents a seven-point gain for the New Democrats and a 16-point loss for the Liberals. Much of their support has drifted to the Conservatives, who only captured 2 per cent of the vote in 2009 (also under a different leader).

Can Clark make a comeback?

Overcoming a gap of 19 points over the next six months is a very tall order for Ms. Clark. A party with a 19-point edge in the polls six months out from the next election could expect to win the popular vote in about 19 out of 20 contests. While that gives Ms. Clark and the B.C. Liberals an outside shot, the clock is running out.

With these levels of support and based on the robustness of the polling data currently available, the New Democrats would win between 46 and 75 seats if an election were held today, more than enough to ensure a majority government. The most likely outcome would be a haul of 62 seats, up from the 36 the party currently occupies in Victoria’s 85-seat legislature.

The Liberals would form the Official Opposition with between eight and 38 seats, with 22 being the most likely outcome. With the Liberals having suffered such a huge drop in support, even the re-election of Ms. Clark, elected to the legislature in a 2011 by-election by a margin of only 3.5 points, would be in doubt.

Neither the Conservatives nor the Greens would be likely to win a seat on these numbers, while the group of elected or re-elected independents could number between one and three.

The regional breakdown

The New Democrats lead in every region of British Columbia, with a projected share of 44 per cent of the vote in metropolitan Vancouver against the Liberals’ 33 per cent. This is enough of an edge for the NDP to win 25 of the region’s 40 seats. The Conservatives come up third with 14 per cent.

In the B.C. Interior and the northern parts of the province, the NDP has the edge with 44 per cent to 32 per cent for the Liberals, with the Conservatives in a respectable third at 16 per cent. The vote splits are even more favourable to the New Democrats in this region, as they would win 23 of 31 seats.

The New Democrats enjoy their widest lead on Vancouver Island, with roughly 62 per cent support to 22 per cent for the Liberals, and would sweep all 14 of the island’s seats. The Greens and Conservatives tie for third with a projected 8 per cent support apiece.

The next six months

Though the odds are very slim, the Liberals are still capable of pulling out a victory in six months’ time. Based on how the polls have moved over the last 180 days, over the next six months the Liberals could plausibly push their support back up to 42 per cent. That would give them a shot at another majority government. Conversely, the Liberals could also sink down to 18 per cent support and be replaced by the Conservatives as the main rival to the NDP. The New Democrats, meanwhile, have been incredibly steady in their support over the last year. A collapse (or surge) is not considered likely.

It is too early to write the B.C. Liberals off, as they still have strong organizational and fundraising capabilities. Support for the B.C. Conservatives is also quite flimsy, and could breakdown under the magnifying glass of a campaign. But the likelihood that Ms. Clark will be able to overcome such a yawning gap between her party’s support and that of Mr. Dix’s NDP in such a short period of time is very low. If the New Democrats can avoid being that 1 out of 20 result, they will form British Columbia’s next government.

All publicly available polls are weighted by sample size, date, and the polling firm’s accuracy record. The seat projection model makes individual projections for all 85 ridings in the province, based on the provincial shifts in support since the 2009 election and subsequent by-elections. The probability forecast is based on historical changes in support between polls and election results. The projection is subject to the margins of error of the polls included as well as the unpredictable nature of politics at the riding level. Read the full methodology.

Éric Grenier writes about politics and polls at ThreeHundredEight.com.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le5910773/""

^^

It is too early to write the B.C. Liberals off, as they still have strong organizational and fundraising capabilities. Support for the B.C. Conservatives is also quite flimsy, and could breakdown under the magnifying glass of a campaign.

Over the last month we have had a taste of Liberal partisan misleading advertising ,from now until the election the Liberals have set aside 11 million tax payer dollars for advertising ,on top of that they have the corporate backers deep pockets to spend on more advertising and we know they have already spent tax payer dollars on setting up internet attack sites to mislead people even more.So i'm not writing them off yet,but am waiting for further attempts to buy the election by the Liberals.The only hope is people have awaken and realize and see through it all ,remember the stick men ad's.
The only way to show the low lives the door is to take the only option available at this point in time and vote for the NDP.



But the biggest ticket item is the second instalment of advertising promoting the jobs strategy. The Liberals set aside $11 million for that purpose from the contingency budget without saying anything about when, how and where it will be spent.Details to come when the public accounts are released next July, meaning after the election.
But even without any further details, Christy Clark's running total for spending on advertising tops out at $64 million and counting.
And for those needing a point of comparison, that is twice what the government spends on parks in a given year, three times what it spends on arts, culture and sports, and half again as much as the annual funding for crime prevention and the victims of crime.
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Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Ch ... z2DS8cCGyr

Latest poll shows Romney will win the election!

http://www.examiner.com/article/gallup-poll-shows-romney-will-win-the-election-over-obama

The difference between having an election today, vs in May is that sometime between now and May Adrian Dix will have to put out an actual platform and answer actual questions.

If done well, they will likely keep that 49% projection, however I doubt they will deliver it well.

Globe and Mail wrote: Dix and labour pledge mutual support

Wow there's a shocker. Not!!!!!!!!!!!!

BC tends to vote NDP when they've had enough of the Liberal/Social Credit shenanigans. Then likewise when voters have had enough of the NDP they vote the Liberals back in. Unfortunately we're one extreme or the other in this province. Initially the Liberals were trying to be a middle ground between the Social Credit and the NDP, however Gordon Wilson wasn't able to keep his focus on politics.

Dix will indeed put forth his program in good time. I think he sounds like the older
Saskatchewan style fiscally. That means they will not continue the cycle of debt we
find ourselves in.
The current Liberal Government is in the position where they can say anything people
have just had enough. There have been too many lies, lies and damn lies as the old
saying goes. people are fed up with them. The HST was the final straw, and that may
have been a good idea in the long run. The problem is they were deceptive about the
way they introduced it.
It should be noted by British Columbians that the Federal Conservatives were as much a
part of the decision and plan as Gordon Campbell. Christie is the wrong leader now and
the worst leader was in before her. It is time the Liberals tried to save the brand not get
elected for another term. After all the conservative coalition that used to be the Social
Credit Party is now the BC Liberal Party and its about to bite the dust and another coalition
will be born out of the ashes.

damngrumpy wrote:The current Liberal Government is in the position where they can say anything people
have just had enough. There have been too many lies, lies and damn lies as the old
saying goes. people are fed up with them. The HST was the final straw, and that may
have been a good idea in the long run. The problem is they were deceptive about the
way they introduced it.

You would of thought they would learn something about the deceptive ,misleading way to which they went about trying to talk us into a tax shift from corporate onto the backs of the middle class just at the very same time we are entering a known world recession .They are still running false misleading advertising on TV,claiming that BC has the lowest provincial income tax in Canada,while we all know Alberta has 0 for provincial income tax.Even the graph they briefly show you so your not to get a good look at ,compares BC's low tax against Quebec,quite the smoke and mirror elusion.Reminisint of the misleading stick man adds.On top of that they are still claiming BC is stable,after Moody downgraded BC to negative,and they claim to be controlling the economy by cutting spending ,at the same time they are spending 15 million to run false misleading advertising.
Even if the NDP do half of what they are talking about doing ,we will still have a 100% improvement.It's a good thing that people are waking up, and seeing the NDP are on track and will be better.

Does AB have no income tax or no sales tax. I believe they do actually have income tax.

maple leaf wrote:Even the graph they briefly show you so your not to get a good look at ,compares BC's low tax against Quebec,quite the smoke and mirror elusion.

I agree with everything you have posted but I don't understand that part. What do you mean ?
Alberta has a provincial tax rate of 10% of taxable income.

Smurf wrote:Does AB have no income tax or no sales tax. I believe they do actually have income tax.

Alberta has a flat provincial tax but no sales tax (PST). Like the rest of the country they do have to pay GST.

Alberta has no sales tax. But they do have to pay the Federal GST. And Albertans pay income tax.

Alberta also has another $3.5 billion deficit this year because they pretty much give away their oil and gas to the big corporations. Some of the big oil corporations actually get a subsidy from the Federal government, about $1.5 billion last year.

Smurf wrote:Does AB have no income tax or no sales tax. I believe they do actually have income tax.

My bad . I am wrong here and was confusing income tax and sales tax.

The title of this thread is scary...