What happened in BC election night was that at the same time as Alliance/new Conservative Party lost its status as a Western protest party the Federal NDP partly regained its status as one stopped being weighed down by its provincial brethren. (Some will no doubt take issue with the suggestion that NDP was once upon a time a de facto protest party in BC. However, its raise from 23 percent in the 1974 election to 37 percent in 1988 and its sudden collapse in 1993 when a viable protest party emerged suggests that it was just that.) As a result, for the first time since the 1988 election Federal voters returned to the NDP in droves. Moreover, the unpopularity of the provincial Liberal party and its ideological closeness to Harper and crew probably also played a role. The NDP’s share of the vote went from 11.3% in 2000 to 26.5. On the flip side of things the Alliance/new conservative Party share of the popular vote dropped by 13.7. Liberal support, meanwhile, was about the same as it was last time (27.7 vs. 28.57).
That said, in 3 key Vancouver ridings Liberal support was up substantially. In Burnaby the Liberal share of the popular vote was up by 7.84%. In Vancouver Quadra it was up by 8.57% in North Vancouver it was up by 7.52.
What accounts for the Liberal raise in these ridings? One working hypothesis is that although province wide ex Tory support was scattered all over the place, in these 3 ridings ex Tory supporters seemed to have voted Liberal; this works once you factor in the Robinson factor in Burnaby.
What is more difficult though is explaining just what happened to the Conservative Party in North Vancouver. Indeed, whereas in Burnaby and Vancouver Quadra Alliance support reverted back to where it was at in 1997, in North Vancouver Alliance support was 12.5% lower than it was in 1997. Three explanations seem plausible. One, maybe North Vancouver did a leftward shuffle. Two, perhaps old NDP voters went back to the NDP after years of voting Alliance! Three, maybe it was a combination of the two. This last one seems to me to be the most probable. There are those voters that went back to the NDP. However, there were probably a more than few film people and people of the Iranian decent who did not support Ted White after what he had to say about them.
[b] North Van [/b]1988 1993 1997 2000 2004
[b]Liberals[/b] 27.2, 31.5, 33.7, 32.55, 40.07
[b]Alliance[/b] 8.92, 40.2, 48.9, 50.02, 36.4
[b]NDP[/b] 23.86, 6.4, 9.2, 4.92, 15.8
[b]PC[/b] 37.64, 15.4, 4.9, 7.09, XXX
[b]Greens[/b] xxx xxx xxx xxx 7.29
[b]Other [/b] 2.37, 6.86, 3.09, 5.32, 0.44
[b]Van Q[/b] 1993 1997 2000 2004
[b]Liberals [/b] 39.5, 42.7, 43.81, 52.38 [b]Alliance [/b]22.2, 27.6, 34.47, 26.35 [b]NDP [/b]10.8, 10, 7.04 15.01 [b]PC [/b] 17.4, 17, 9.36, XXX [b]Greens [/b]XXX XXX XXX 5.61 [b]Other [/b]10.33, 3.36, 4.15, 0.65
[b]Burnaby[/b] 1997 2000 2004
[b]Liberals [/b] 26.1, 24.71, 32.55 [b]Alliance [/b] 26.5, 33.42, 27.58 [b]NDP [/b] 43.1, 35.81, 34.62 [b]PC [/b] 3.4, 5.42, XXX [b]Greens [/b] XXX XXX 3.7 [b]Other [/b] 0.9, 0.4, 1.53
|