Not-so liberal Liberals projected to win in British Columbia; score huge upset over NDP

So much for all those pre­dic­tions of a big NDP victory.

It’s been an hour and fif­teen min­utes since polls closed in British Columbi­a’s 2013 provin­cial elec­tions, and the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) has yet to over­take the Lib­er­als in the count of leading/elected MLAs (Mem­bers of the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly). And it looks like they’re not going to.

As the min­utes tick on, the NDP’s chances of vic­to­ry seem increas­ing­ly slim. There is no talk of an NDP land­slide now on Cana­di­an net­works; in fact, one (CTV) has already called the elec­tion for the Lib­er­als, pro­ject­ing they will retain their major­i­ty. And on Glob­al (which I’m watch­ing from here in the States), anchors and pun­dits are already sug­gest­ing that Christy Clark will be bask­ing in the glow of vic­to­ry tomor­row while the NDP does some soul-searching.

UPDATE, 9:47 PM: Glob­al has now called the elec­tion for the Lib­er­als as well.

Why are the Lib­er­als ahead? Well, they’re doing much bet­ter than expect­ed in many areas of the  province, includ­ing Prince George and the Low­er Mainland.

Some of the ris­ing stars the NDP was count­ing on to help car­ry the par­ty to vic­to­ry aren’t far­ing too well. For exam­ple, Chris Wil­son, whose cam­paign I cov­ered on Sat­ur­day, is trail­ing in Coquit­lam-Burke Mountain.

It appears the Lib­er­als could end up with more seats than they had at the dis­so­lu­tion of the B.C. Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly, although bal­lots are still being count­ed and the num­bers will change. That would be a stun­ning outcome.

In a bit of good news for the NDP, in Van­cou­ver — Point Grey, the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s David Eby is now ahead of Christy Clark. As of 9:40 PM:

There will like­ly be pres­sure on the NDP’s Adri­an Dix to step down as NDP leader, at least from some quar­ters. Dix’s strat­e­gy of try­ing to run a pos­i­tive cam­paign and deflect Lib­er­al attacks — instead of aggres­sive­ly coun­ter­at­tack­ing — appears to have back­fired, and cost the NDP the election.

The NDP was­n’t appar­ent­ly able to cap­i­tal­ize on dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the Lib­er­al gov­ern­ment, despite all of the pub­lic opin­ion research that sug­gest­ed vot­ers were unhap­py with the B.C. Lib­er­als and ready to turn them out.

The results are so at odds with the polling — like in last year’s provin­cial elec­tion in Alber­ta — that Cana­di­an media are sug­gest­ing it will be a water­shed moment (and not in a good way) for poll­sters and pub­lic opin­ion research firms.

Instead of it being a his­to­ry-mak­ing night for the NDP, it’s turn­ing out to be a great night for the Lib­er­als and a good night for the Green Par­ty, who have appar­ent­ly man­aged to elect their very first MLA (Andrew Weaver) to the Assem­bly in the Oak Bay — Gor­don Head rid­ing on Van­cou­ver Island.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives, mean­while, are hav­ing a pret­ty bad night as well. They haven’t won any seats or led in any rid­ings the whole evening.

It appears many of the British Columbians they were woo­ing decid­ed to sup­port the incum­bent Lib­er­als instead of vot­ing Conservative.

The pro­gres­sive vote, mean­while, appears to be more split between the NDP and the Green Par­ty. The NDP had repeat­ed­ly appealed for pro­gres­sive vot­ers to vote NDP dur­ing the cam­paign, but many still chose to vote Green.

Some of the rid­ings that the NDP was thought to stand a very good chance of win­ning that are cur­rent­ly going Lib­er­al instead include:

• Sur­rey-Panora­ma
• Coquit­lam-Burke Mountain
• North Van­cou­ver-Lons­dale
• Delta North
• Van­cou­ver — Fairview
• Chill­i­wack-Hope
• Prince George — Mackenzie
• Cari­boo — Chilcotin
• Kam­loops — Port Thompson
• Ver­non-Monashee
• Port Moody — Coquitlam
• Maple Ridge — Pitt Meadows

The Lib­er­als’ plat­i­tude-filled rhetoric about cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty and exploit­ing the province’s nat­ur­al resources, cou­pled with a sus­tained effort to sow fear, uncer­tain­ty, and doubt (FUD) about the NDP into the minds of British Colum­bia vot­ers, appears to have suc­ceed­ed beyond their wildest expectations.

The results once again offer proof that while vot­ers say they don’t like neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing, it is effec­tive. Dix and the NDP allowed them­selves to be defined by the B.C. Lib­er­als, espe­cial­ly towards the end of the cam­paign, and it result­ed in an elec­tion night cat­a­stro­phe of huge pro­por­tions. Instead of tak­ing pow­er or at least cut­ting into the Lib­er­al major­i­ty, they have lost ground — and the Lib­er­als will return to Vic­to­ria with an even big­ger cau­cus than the one they left with.