Little more than a month ago, Lorne Doerkson was a little-known B.C. Conservative MLA who had shown no indication he was aspiring to provincial leadership. By tomorrow, he could be on his way to be the 38th premier of British Columbia.
For David Eby and the New Democrats, it didn’t need to be this way. Seeing good polls and the Conservatives in shambles under then-leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Eby decided to call an early election two years ahead of schedule. Instead of turning his razor-thin majority into something more comfortable, Eby appears to be on track to lead his party out of power.
The final update of The Writ’s B.C. Election Tracker gives the B.C. Conservatives the lead with 46% support in the vote projection, ahead of the NDP’s 40.9%. The Greens trail in third with 10.8%, followed by OneBC and CentreBC at 1.2% and 0.7%, respectively. These provincewide numbers translate into 59 seats for the Conservatives, leaving just 32 for the New Democrats and two for the Greens.
Compared to the 2024 provincial election, this represents a gain of 2.7 points for the Conservatives and a drop of four points for the NDP. It isn’t a dramatic shift, but B.C.’s elections are often decided at the margins. That net 6.7-point swing is enough to cost the NDP 15 of the seats it won in the last election, all of them going to the Conservatives.
The Median Projection, which takes into account potential polling error and the number of close races across the province, whittles down the Conservative advantage slightly to 56 seats against 35 for the NDP. But the picture remains the same — the Conservatives are heavily favoured to win this election, with enough cushion over the 47-seat threshold needed for a majority government to have some confidence in the outcome.
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The model awards the Conservatives the most seats in 81% of simulations. As was demonstrated in the Quebec election, the model is a little too uncertain (I’ll be making some changes after this election is over) and is banking on the possibility for the NDP to win a lot of the toss-ups, as well as for the polls to be off by quite a fair bit, to give the NDP an 18% chance of coming out ahead. But, based on where the numbers are, it would require a significant polling error — and not just an error in the modelling — for the NDP to pull off the upset.
There is a very small chance of a minority (roughly 3%), which would require the Conservatives and NDP to finish within two or maybe three seats of each other, with the Greens holding the balance of power. Threading that needle is just a little too unlikely for a minority government to be considered a real possibility. The NDP would need to seriously over-perform the polls to get the seat margin down to two or three. Complicating matters is that if the NDP managed to do that, it would likely come at the expense of the Greens, decreasing their chances of winning a third (or even a second) seat. Stranger things have happened, but a minority is simply mathematically unlikely.
The last polls of the campaign have been very consistent. The Conservatives lead by five points in the projection, which isn’t an enormous margin. It’s possible to imagine a scenario where, with a five-point average lead, the Conservatives could be leading by eight or nine points in a few polls and the NDP pulling into a tie in a few others. But, instead, the Conservatives have led in every poll published in the last week of this campaign.
The party registered between 43% and 46% in the nine polls published by nine different pollsters in the last week, with the NDP landing between 37% and 43% (though only one poll had them over 40%). The projection has the Conservatives at 46% and the NDP at 41% in part because of the lack of candidates the other parties are fielding. With only a one-third slate apiece for OneBC and CentreBC, which combine for about 3% of the vote in these polls, and with the Greens missing 20 candidates, the Conservatives and NDP are likely to beat their polls for the simple reason that the other three parties won’t have enough candidates on the ballot to match their own polls.
That’s the issue for the Greens, who were between 11% and 13% in seven of the nine final polls. They are lacking candidates primarily where their support is weakest, but nevertheless it will be difficult to match their 11% to 13% consensus polling range. That would require averaging between 14% and 17% in the ridings where they do have candidates.
Are there reasons to expect some polling misses? B.C. is still haunted by the 2013 provincial election, when every poll had the NDP winning an election that was actually won by the B.C. Liberals.
Not really.
One of the culprits in polling misses is usually differing turnout rates by different voters — particularly older voters. While there isn’t unanimity on this front, the polls have generally shown a Conservative advantage among older voters that is equal to or greater than their advantage among the population as a whole. That wasn’t the case for every poll (Ipsos had the NDP leading among voters over the age of 55, Léger had it tied among this age group and Pollara had a tie among voters over the age of 65), but on balance there are no blaring warning signs in the polls that a surprise could be in store.
For the New Democrats, that means the early election call is setting up to be one of the biggest strategic blunders in Canadian political history. The election wasn’t an urgent necessity, but even if it had been the party seemed to have been caught flat-footed by its own election call. Eby has also struggled throughout the campaign to explain why the election was needed in the first place. The lead his New Democrats had prior to the writ drop evaporated as soon as the campaign began.
Eby has had the worst campaign of the three major leaders. Polling by the Angus Reid Institute and Research Co. suggests that between 40% and 50% of British Columbians say their opinion of Eby has worsened over the course of the campaign, compared to just 6% to 15% who say it has improved. In those two polls, along with one by Ipsos, Eby has a net negative approval or favourability rating.
But the NDP is not entirely cooked. The party is still projected to take 41% of the vote, is behind by just a couple of points in Metro Vancouver and is leading on Vancouver Island. The party’s support has also held firm in the Interior and North. If the New Democrats can eke out wins in the closest races, the outcome could be far more positive than the current projection. There are 15 ridings in which the NDP is projected to be trailing the Conservatives by five points or less. Flipping all of them (without losing any of the close races in which the NDP is favoured) would give the NDP the barest of victories with 47 seats. While that’s a lot to ask, flipping even five of them could spare the NDP a rout.
Of course, things could be even worse. The NDP is leading by five points or less in nine seats. Losing those would drop the party below 30.
The Conservatives are, in some ways, on track to win this election by default. With the exception of the shift in the polls that occurred after Findlay’s resignation and the early election call, the party’s numbers have been holding steady throughout the campaign. Once the candidate slates were known and the party’s support (along with that of the NDP) was boosted in the projection, the Conservatives haven’t budged much from a range of between 44.5% and 46%. Instead, the NDP has slipped behind. That has not bolstered the Conservatives as much as it has given a little more life to the Greens.
Doerkson has managed to run a relatively clean campaign, positioning himself as a reasonable alternative to an unpopular government. It’s often said that governments defeat themselves, and this is perhaps a textbook case of just that. There’s no Doerkson-mania in British Columbia — both the Angus Reid Institute and Ipsos give Doerkson a mildly net-negative approval rating (Research Co. is more bullish) and roughly equal amounts of British Columbians say their opinion of Doerkson has improved or worsened over the course of the campaign. But that just speaks to the default nature of this victory — Doerkson and the Conservatives did not provide a reason for voters to go back to the NDP, but neither did they catch fire with the electorate.
As mentioned above, there are a lot of toss-up races between the Conservatives and the NDP. If those toss-ups fall toward the Conservatives, the party could easily clear the 60-seat threshold. If they fall to the NDP, then the Conservative majority might be modest.
If the party does secure a majority, it’ll be because of gains made in Metro Vancouver. The party is only projected to pick up two seats from the NDP in the Interior and two more on Vancouver Island, but it is projected to flip about a dozen in the Lower Mainland, with four of those alone being in Surrey. The NDP failed to secure a big majority in 2024 because of the inroads the Conservatives had made in Metro Vancouver. In 2026, deeper inroads look set to give the Conservatives the win.
The Greens have had a decent campaign, perhaps their best since the 2017 election when they won the balance of power. It’s unfortunate that they weren’t able to run a full slate, but the back half of this campaign has given the Greens some momentum, thanks in large part to the performance of new leader Emily Lowan in the debate.
Lowan ends this campaign with strongly positive net approval ratings: +10 according to the Angus Reid Institute, +12 according to Ipsos and +14 according to Research Co. Those are far better numbers than either Eby or Doerkson. Polls also show that roughly twice as many British Columbians say their opinion of the Green leader improved over the course of the campaign than say it has worsened.
This has boosted the Greens in the polls, from a low of 7.8% in the vote projection prior to the release of the first post-debate polls, to a high of 10.8% in the final projection. (The party would be closer to 12% if it was running a full slate.) The jump has been most dramatic on Vancouver Island, where the Greens have gained nearly six points in the last week.
But will it be enough to flip any seats? The Greens are likely to retain the two they won in the last election: Saanich North and the Islands and West Vancouver-Sea to Sky. The high end of the projection has them potentially winning a third seat (and in a very, very few simulations the Greens win a fourth or a fifth). The top targets would be Kootenay Central, Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Victoria-Beacon Hill, along with Saanich South where the Greens have a strong candidate in former BC coroner Lisa Lapointe. The polls have not been strong enough, though, to make the Greens the favourite in any of these ridings — if they do win more than two, it’ll be because of a local dynamic at play. But, even if the Greens do manage only two seats, they should be able to look positively at this campaign as a springboard to better things in the future.
Not so for OneBC or CentreBC, the two off-shoots from the Conservatives who had legitimate hopes for a breakthrough only a few weeks ago.
There are only 35 candidates running under the CentreBC banner and 33 running for OneBC. This has prevented both parties from being considered as “major” parties. Prior to the election call the two parties were polling as high as 5% apiece, enough of a base to make some trouble for the bigger parties. But the reunification of the Conservatives under Doerkson removed the need for CentreBC and the slide of the NDP has sapped what support existed for OneBC as right-wing voters who prioritize defeating the New Democrats flock back to the Conservatives. Now, the two parties are polling at 1% to 2% apiece and, because of the lack of a full slate, will struggle to even manage that.
Where could they have an impact? For CentreBC, the two ridings to watch are Surrey South, where leader and former Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko is running, and Oak Bay-Gordon Head, where former Green leader and MLA Andrew Weaver is running. Local dynamics that can’t be picked up by regional polling could boost either of these two candidates, but it would take quite a miracle to elect either of them in a polarized race.
For OneBC, the question will be whether leader Dallas Brodie can be competitive in her riding of Vancouver-Quilchena — again, a tough prospect when the race is between the Conservatives and NDP. The party is also polling 3-4% in the Interior and North, so in very tight NDP-Conservative races the amount of vote going to OneBC could be decisive. But, for both parties, the 2026 election could very well be the end of the road.
It looks like it could also be the end of the road for David Eby. It was a gamble — a big one — to call an early election two years ahead of schedule when the party had, prior to the implosion of Findlay’s version of the Conservative Party, largely been struggling in the polls under a leader with drooping approval ratings.
Perhaps things were only going to get worse from here. The NDP’s chances of winning might have been even dimmer in 2027 or in 2028. The brief uptick in NDP support this summer could indeed have been the best chance the party was going to have at re-election. That being the case, perhaps Eby can’t be blamed for shooting his shot.
But a day in government is always better than a day in opposition, and the New Democrats could have had another two years in government. A lot can be done over that time — and a lot can change. The NDP’s re-election odds looked grim as it approached a decade in office, but there is no certainty in the future. The Conservative Party was falling apart under Findlay. It could’ve fallen apart again under her successor. An NDP defeat in 2027 or 2028 was not inevitable.
And neither is their defeat tonight. But the odds don’t look good. If the polls are right and the Conservatives do win, this election call will be one of the biggest unforced errors a sitting government has made in recent memory. And it’ll propel Lorne Doerkson to the premier’s office — somewhere that no one, including himself, thought he’d be just a few weeks ago.
As a very senior citizen I like to think that in Ontario Bob Rae beating Premier David Peterson was an upset to remember.
Thanks. Great analysis as always. Going to be an interesting day.