B.C. NDP takes massive lead at 48% in poll

NDP MLA-elect Gwen O'Mahony celebrates her by-election win in the riding of Chilliwack-Hope with B.C. NDP Leader Adrian Dix, in Chilliwack, B.C., on April 19, 2012.

The Globe and Mail:

Even with support for the B.C. Conservatives on the wane, the governing Liberals would be facing an electoral wipeout if a provincial election were held now, a new poll shows.

The telephone survey by Forum Research Inc., conducted on May 2, shows support for the B.C. New Democrats has grown to 48 per cent among decided and leaning voters, while the B.C. Conservatives, having placed third in two by-elections in April, dropped to 19 per cent since the last Forum poll in April. The B.C. Liberals held on to 23-per-cent support – half of the support they had on election day in May, 2009.

Projecting those results on the electoral map, the pollster said voters would deliver a dramatic shakeup in provincial politics if the election – still a year away – were called now. It would see the return to government of the B.C. New Democratic Party, which last won electoral favour in 1996, in a landslide, with 70 of the 85 seats in the legislature.

The B.C. Liberals, having governed for more than a decade, would be reduced to just 13 seats. The remaining seats would go independent candidates, according to the pollster, while the B.C. Conservatives would be shut out.

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