B.C. Election Recap: 5 Things To Know As British Columbia Heads To The Polls
British Columbians head the polls Saturday.
Voting day marks the culmination of a lightning fast pandemic election campaign spurred by NDP Leader John Horgan’s snap election call in September. The province began the campaign with an NDP minority government propped up by the Green Party, but Horgan’s hoping to end it with a majority.
Horgan, B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson and newly elected Green Leader Sonia Fursteanu have been campaigning virtually and in-person for weeks, trying to win over voters across the province.
But many B.C. voters won’t even go to their local polling stations on Saturday, having already voted as part of a record number of advance and mail-in voters this year. That’s one of the biggest storylines of an election that’s been light on game-changing controversy, but not without intrigue.
Here are five key things you need to know ahead of Saturday’s big voting day.
According to some polls, the campaign didn’t make a huge difference …
At the start of the election campaign, Horgan’s NDP held around 47 per cent of the popular vote, according to a Leger poll.
Weeks later it’s the same story, as a Leger survey published Friday found the NDP would capture 47 per cent of decided voters.
The latest survey, which asked 1,110 randomly chosen respondents about their voting intentions, found the Liberals held 36 per cent support, followed by the Greens with 14 per cent.
Other polls show a similar trend, with some upward movement by the Liberals and Greens but Horgan’s NDP holding a steady and commanding lead. An Ipsos poll Friday saw the NDP retaining the 17-point lead they’ve had since the start of the campaign.
“It was never close,” Ipsos president Kyle Braid said in a press release Friday.
If the polls are right, Horgan could very well get the majority he wants, with NDP surges expected across the province.
… but there were still some fireworks
Wilkinson found himself on the defensive as several Liberal candidates have...
