The Tyee: British Columbia’s New Democratic Party poised for a landslide victory tonight

British Columbi­a’s New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) is on the cusp of a his­toric vic­to­ry tonight over the not-so lib­er­al B.C. Lib­er­als, accord­ing to The Tyee, the province’s best-known online-only publication.

The Tyee’s final elec­toral pre­dic­tion breaks down as fol­lows:

• NDP: Fifty-sev­en seats
• Lib­er­als: Twen­ty-sev­en seats
• Inde­pen­dents: One seat

The Tyee clas­si­fies thir­ty-four seats as “def­i­nite­ly” NDP, with only thir­teen “def­i­nite­ly” Lib­er­al. A fur­ther twen­ty-three seats are con­sid­ered “Like­ly” NDP and four­teen “Like­ly” Lib­er­al. The Tyee no longer has any races clas­si­fied as tossups.

If the NDP does indeed cap­ture fifty-five plus seats tonight, it will be an elec­toral vic­to­ry of mam­moth pro­por­tions, and Adri­an Dix will take over as the province’s next pre­mier with a clear man­date to govern.

Eleventh hour polls indi­cate the NDP remains com­fort­ably ahead of the Lib­er­als, although polls in oth­er recent provin­cial elec­tions have been less than reliable.

But there’s no evi­dence that sug­gests that the Lib­er­als are going to eke out an upset here at the end. They haven’t con­ced­ed defeat, but they lack the ener­gy and the momen­tum that the NDP is clear­ly enjoying.

They’ve attempt­ed to scare British Columbians into not vot­ing NDP, and that tac­tic has cer­tain­ly worked in the past, but this may be the year it fails spectacularly.

The NDP, under Adri­an Dix, has remained cool and col­lect­ed in the face of Lib­er­al attacks for weeks, and is coun­ter­ing tele­vi­sion ad cam­paigns with peo­ple pow­er. The NDP is field­ing its best slate of can­di­dates in years and has improved its GOTV (get out the vote) oper­a­tions to com­pen­sate for the Lib­er­als’ mon­ey advantage.
I saw this first­hand when I vis­it­ed the Van­cou­ver area over the weekend.

If the NDP wins tonight, the entire Left Coast — stretch­ing from the U.S.-Mexico bor­der to the Alaskan coast — will have Democratic/New Demo­c­ra­t­ic, pro­gres­sive chief exec­u­tives in charge. (Ore­gon and Cal­i­for­nia elect­ed John Kitzhaber and Jer­ry Brown in 2010, while Wash­ing­ton elect­ed Jay Inslee just last year).

And British Colum­bia will have a gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to job train­ing, eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties, pro­tect­ing the province’s coasts and address­ing the cli­mate crisis.

We will have live cov­er­age of the B.C. provin­cial elec­tion here on The Advo­cate tonight begin­ning at 8 PM. Check back for instant analy­sis as the results roll in and we learn who will be the next Pre­mier of British Columbia.