BC2009 Election Prediction
Posted May 11, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, Predictions
Summary:
Seats:
BC Liberals 45
NDP 39
Independent 1
Popular Vote (rounded to 0.5%):
BC Liberals 44.5%
NDP 41.5%
Greens 10.0%
Others 4.0%
Predicted Voter Turnout: 59% (2005: 62.36%)
Analysis:
The striking similarity of results to the 2005 election seems odd, but there are similarities between the two elections. Both leaders are the same. The chief concern is the same – “Do I have a job, can I care for myself and my family?”. Almost everything else (Crime, Environment, the Gateway project, etc.) is secondary to most middle-aged voters (i.e. the people that actually vote in elections).
A voter in 2005 that voted NDP is very unlikely to vote BC Liberal in 2009, and vice-versa; it is far more likely that a BC Liberal and NDP voter is not likely to show up. If they do show up to vote, that vote is likely to get parked into the third party position – the Green party has been the chief recipient of such protest voting (which can easily be seen by analyzing the Green vote in safe ridings vs. non-safe ridings), but there is now the BC Conservative party to park the vote as well. The Conservatives will cannibalize some of the Green vote in their 24 ridings, hence the Greens will be very lucky this election to get into the teens.
The BC Liberals’ campaign was designed as a mirror image of their 2005 campaign, and took some elements of the 2008 Federal Conservative campaign book; steady-as-she-goes, boring as possible, highly scripted, less scandalous campaigning. For the most part, this strategy cost them some winnable seats, but this tradeoff was made knowing it would drastically increase the probability of a majority government, which is the real objective of the campaign – better to have a 99% probability of winning 45 seats, instead of selecting a campaign style that would have a 90% chance of winning 60 seats, but with the risk of a 10% chance of losing government. It is likely that the low-key style of campaigning will work.
The NDP’s first two weeks in the campaign were disastrous. They were completely unprepared for the onslaught of news concerning the anti-endorsement from environmental groups after making the “scrap the gas tax” pledge official in their platform. The plane trip over some run-of-river projects, with Carole James and everybody on the verge of throwing up, was the peak of the dysfunction of the campaign. Somehow, they pulled out their trump cards and caught two big breaks on the April 24th Friday with John van Dongen’s driving record and Marc Dalton’s emails hitting the news. This gave them much needed breathing room for the weekend and the following Monday.
After this happened, the NDP got their act together, started calling their main pledge “scrap the carbon tax” (not the gas tax), and they capped it off with a successful debate against Gordon Campbell, where Carole James really got underneath his skin and got the Premier to say things that he probably wouldn’t have wanted to say had he had another chance.
The Green Party really never got the exposure they needed in order to make any significant breakthroughs – the prime opportunity they had was with Jane Sterk in the television debate, but her performance can only be described as disappointing.
In terms of economic policy, there are a few items which affect various jurisdictions over the province. By far and away, the biggest plus that has helped the government province-wide has been the continual reduction of income and corporate taxes. This is unquestionably a benchmark that the government can be proud of – aggressive tax reductions will continue to pay off in spades in the future when companies decide where to park their capital.
The biggest minus for the government has been the carbon tax. While it is small on an absolute level, it has split the population significantly in terms of its support; unfortunately for the government, its supporters tend to be of the lower taxation variety, which means they have spent a ton of political capital to implement it. It will particularly affect them in the non-urban ridings.
The government has been generally good on the economic portfolio; they have taken a lot of action to encourage capital into the province. The concern the public has with the BC Liberal government is how much of the province they will be giving away in the process of encouraging investment – a sentiment that Carole James and the NDP have done an excellent job tapping into.
On the issue of crime and justice, neither party will do anything of substance on the issue; it has been a lot of all-talk and no action, which is a contributing factor why Wally Oppal is likely not to get re-elected. He has been the “fall guy” for this issue. Crime and justice is a very complex issue and while silver bullet solutions (e.g. promises to “Hire hundreds of police and prosecutors and fund them”) sound good on paper, this is a societal issue that is not solved with money alone. The very nature of crime and punishment has to be more thoroughly explored, but this process would be very politicized and no government will ever touch it.
Healthcare and education have been surprisingly silent this campaign. The government smartly (from a political perspective) prevented this from ever occurring by massively increasing the health budget over the past four years and gave nominal increases to education. Unfortunately, the real political issue will come up in the future when somebody will eventually point out that the billions of dollars that are being poured into healthcare have gutted practically every other ministry.
The last issue I will touch upon is First Nations – the government has banked a lot of capital into improving the relationship with First Nations. Electorally, my guess is that it will bear them no political fruit. In fact, it might have even cost the government a lot of support.
When one looks at the policies, and estimates of what demographics and population would support the BC Liberal party, the closest stereotype would be that of sub-urban British Columbia. This is easily seen in vote results in places like Richmond and Kelowna.
The NDP have their core support that could be described in two areas – “dense urban” cores (e.g. downtown Vancouver), union areas (e.g. Campbell River).
Both parties have support bases in rural British Columbia; this appeals more to the “decentralize Victoria’s influence and leave me alone” electoral districts; Nelson, BC is a good example of the NDP support, and the Peace River region is a good example of the BC Liberal support.
On a side note, I had no idea how to interpret the advanced voting turnout statistics. I know there is predictive information there to be dredged out, but I spent a couple hours playing with it to no avail.
Seats:
Notable seats to look out for:
Boundary-Similkameen – This will be close, but John Slater will pull it out by a narrow victory, despite Joe Cardoso being able to get about 8% of the vote in the riding.
Burnaby North – Richard Lee by a hair, yet again.
Burnaby-Deer Lake – Should be a good test of the Derek Corrigan effect – if he can’t get his wife elected, then he will look quite politically marginalized.
Cariboo (both ridings) – On paper, they look tight, but the NDP candidates should expand their leads.
Comox Valley – Stan Hagen was the only person keeping this a BC Liberal seat.
Coquitlam-Maillardville – Diane Thorne stands a good chance of falling victim to the suburban effect of the BC Liberal policies.
Delta South – Delta has always been a very unique municipality and the NDPers will give Vicki Huntington the push she needs to get above the BC Liberal base vote. The 2005 result will give her the credibility she needs in order to do this.
East Kootenay – Bill Bennett will keep his seat. I do not think Wilf Hanni has enough vote drawing power in this riding.
Esquimalt-Royal Roads – Prediction: NDP 43%, BC Liberals 35%, Greens/Jane Sterk 22%.
Maple Ridge-Mission – Marc Dalton’s email will not cost him a seat. He would, however, be high on my list of “candidates most likely to get kicked out of caucus” after the election.
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows – Michael Sather ordinarily would likely be a one-term MLA, but he has been outspoken on enough issues (specifically farmland conservation) that, despite the fact that he failed to win the mayoral race, should have enough traction to barely keep his seat. Not opposing the construction of the Pitt River Bridge will likely help him as well.
North Coast – Will be closer than expected.
North Vancouver-Lonsdale – This has the highest potential for an NDP upset, but I do not think it will happen.
Saanich North and the Islands – On paper, this is a BC Liberal area, but the NDP have their stars aligned correctly with a proper candidate to take the necessary Green vote from the region to make this much closer than it was in 2005. My guess is that the NDP takes this riding by a hair, but it will be very close.
Surrey-Fleetwood – This riding involves Indo-Canadian politics, which is unfortunately a topic that I do not have much knowledge of. I am just guessing this will be an NDP seat based off of Jagrup Brar’s status as an MLA and coupled with a BC Conservative candidate, but this is really a coin toss when one factors in the suburban strength of the BC Liberal party. This seat is probably my most ill-informed prediction.
Vancouver-Fairview – Have to go with my by-election data on this one. Although Jenn McGinn loses some support from the boundary change, everything east of Oak Street and north of King Edward screams demographically NDP. The Cambie Line backlash also is still very prevalent in this area.
Vancouver-Fraserview – Kash Heed is facing a much more difficult candidate in Gabriel Yiu. Yiu has had much more time to prepare and there is an interesting ethnic factor involved in this riding – a high density of Chinese population, plus a high density of Indo-Canadians in the central south. It will be very tight.
Vancouver-Kensington – This will be much more closer than it was in 2005, but the NDP and Mable Elmore should squeak it out. Syrus Lee should give Elmore a run for her money, however.
Disclaimer
I have been very wrong in the past before when it comes to making these sorts of predictions, and I make them with the full acknowledgment that I could be wrong again in the future!
