2017 British Columbia election

[mileslunn]

The Greens and NDP might want to run just one candidate between them. The riding may have gone Liberal in the federal election (hard to tell), so anything is possible.

To everyone's surprise, Kelowna-Lake Country actually *did* go Liberal in 2015.  And this was with an assist from the Greens, who opted not to run a candidate there.  Meanwhile, in neighbouring Central Okanagan-S-N (the de facto federal "Kelowna West", and the successor to Stockwell Day's bulwark), the Grits came shockingly close to making it a federal twofer.

Provincially, I think the big-tent BC Liberals are still favoured.

Even though I predicted a Conservative win, I was not terribly surprised.  The Liberals had been polling quite well in the region.

Do you mean B.C. or are pollsters doing federal crosstabs for Vancouver, Okanagan etc?

You do know I work for a polling company right? I just created my own crosstabs!

Yes. That was poor wording on my part.

Are you guys polling BC enough to get a large enough sample for meaningful crosstabs? Atlantic crosstabs are crappy enough, and the Okanagan is smaller than that

We had a lot of data across the country available during the federal election. It's why my (our) seat by seat predictions were the best; I was able to identify trends that no one else could possibly know (except those working on the campaigns).

Central Okanagan seems to never go NDP but it will occasionally go Liberal (as in real Liberal, not centre-right BC Liberals) if people are angry enough at the right.  I think the federal Liberal win there is more comparable to Judy Tyabji winning provincially in 1991 under the Gordon Wilson BC Liberals (who were a real liberal party then).  I suspect a combination of the left coalescing around the Liberals and some dissatisfied Tories pissed at Harper voting Liberal put them over the top.  Considering Christy Clark got 59% there and all the Okanagan ridings went massively BC Liberal, it would be a massive shock if she lost her seat.  What I am surprised about is she is not waiting until the leader is chosen as what if the next leader is someone like Diane Watts who doesn't have a seat in the legislature.  It would make sense to run him or her in a very safe seat rather than risk the embarrassment of losing never mind losing a seat gives the NDP-Greens a longer lease on life.

[mileslunn]

I suspect a combination of the left coalescing around the Liberals and some dissatisfied Tories pissed at Harper voting Liberal put them over the top. 

Or, dissatisfied Tory *voters*, many of whom had hitherto viewed the CPC as an only-viable-option "vote of convenience".

Growth and demographic shifts may also be a factor, i.e. newer Kelowna hordes (including retirees) being more "moderate" and less Bible-Belty than their predecessors...

True enough although it seems provincially at least the over 65 group is solidly BC Liberals whatever the federal leanings (sort of a more modified version in age distribution compared to the last British election).  Never mind it will be interesting to see if the federal Liberals manage to hold Kelowna-Lake Country in 2019.  Based on the current polling that just might, but history would suggest not so too early to tell.  That being said even if they do lose that one its not going to cost them government they would have to lose ones like the North Shore seats to be in danger of losing outright.