BC Conservatives Inching Closer to Governing NDP in Latest Poll as Fall Election Looms

The B.C. legislature in Victoria in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

With a B.C. election this fall, a new political poll shows the Conservative Party of British Columbia passing the Opposition BC United Party and closing in on the governing NDP.

Nearly a third of B.C. voters (31 percent) said they would vote Conservative if the election were held today, according to a March 21 Mainstreet Research press release.

Nearly four out of 10 voters (36 percent) said they would vote to re-elect the NDP. Just over one in 10 (13 percent) would vote BC United, formerly the BC Liberal Party.

“This deeper dive in to federal vote intentions in B.C. is consistent with our latest national polls,” Mainstreet president and CEO Quito Maggi said.

“The provincial numbers are interesting and continue to suggest that the BC United rebrand experiment is a failure,” he added.

Mr. Maggi said the poll results are consistent with 2023 results that showed BC United in third place.

“As voters come closer to an election, that [BC United] support continues to erode benefitting both the NDP and the BC Conservatives.”

The B.C. Conservatives have a nine-point lead among male voters, the survey found, although the party trails the NDP by 20 points with female voters.

The Conservatives had a 10-point lead with voters in the B.C. Interior and were tied with the NDP on Vancouver Island.

The NDP has an 11-point lead in the greater Vancouver area, the survey found.

The survey was conducted by telephone interviews with 1,063 adults in the province between March 18 and 19. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3 percent with a 95 percent confidence level.

Voter support for the provincial Conservatives started to show in October 2023, when a Leger poll found support for the party at 25 percent and support for BC United dropping to 19 percent. At that time, the NDP had 42 percent support.

Conservative Growth in B.C.

The Conservative Party of B.C.’s revival started after executives of BC United blocked conservative commentator Aaron Gunn’s bid for leadership of the party in 2021 over social media comments.

Mr. Gunn was attacked by the NDP for expressing views such as denying that Canada has “systemic racism” or is guilty of genocide. He decided to rebrand the provincial Conservative Party.

The party got a boost when then-independent MLA John Rustad crossed the floor to join the Conservatives in February 2023.

Mr. Rustad had been kicked out of the BC United Party for sharing a social media post saying carbon dioxide is an essential element of life rather than a catalyst for global warming.

At the time, BC United Leader Kevin Falcon said Mr. Rustad did not represent the party’s position on climate change.

After becoming leader of the Conservatives in March 2023, Mr. Rustad promised change to provincial politics through a grassroots movement.

In September 2023, Abbotsford South MLA Bruce Banman left BC United to join the Conservatives.

With two MLAs, the Conservatives gained official party status in the provincial legislature.

The next provincial election in B.C. is scheduled for Oct. 19.