No clear winner between NDP and Conservatives as BC Election night draws to a close

In an anomaly of an election night and an incredibly close race, there was no clear winner between BC’s NDP and Conservative parties this evening.

As of this publication on Saturday, October 19th, the BC NDP and its leader David Eby hold 46 seats in the Legislative Assembly. 

Meanwhile, BC’s Conservative Party and its leader John Rustad sit at 45 seats.

Additionally, the BC Green Party holds onto two seats, despite their leader Sonia Furstenau losing her riding to NDP’s Grace Lore.

Of note, both John Rustad and David Eby did end up winning their respective ridings.

Since polls closed at 8 p.m., there was no projected winner because so many electoral districts were neck and neck, with candidates separated by only a handful of votes. 

One riding in particular, Juan De Fuca-Malahat, will not be decided until October 26th—this is due to mail-in votes needing to be counted, and an extremely tight race with only 25 votes currently separating the two parties.

Due to this tight race, the BC Greens are in a unique position where they once again hold the power to make a ‘supply and confidence’ deal with the winning party to give them the edge.

This also means that if the BC Greens oppose proposed legislation, they hold the power to block or pass any bill coming through the legislature. 

Vancouver Island remained mostly NDP with two seats being claimed by Conservatives, and one seat being claimed by the Green Party.

Here’s a list of local ridings and their respective winners:

• Victoria-Beacon Hill: NDP – Grace Lore (47%)
• Victoria-Swan Lake: NDP – Nina Krieger (56%)
• Esquimalt-Colwood: NDP – Darlene Rotchford (51%)
• Oak Bay-Gordon Head: NDP – Diana Gibson (46%)
• Langford-Highlands: NDP – Ravi Parmar (51%)
• Saanich South: – NDP – Lana Popham (50%)
• Saanich North and the Islands: GREEN – Rob Botterell (36%)
• Juan de Fuca-Malahat: NDP – Dana Lajeunesse (39%)
• Cowichan Valley: NDP – Debra Toporowski (40%)

This year was the first that BC used an electronic tabulator system to count the votes which expedited the counting process. 

Though in the beginning of the evening the counting went faster, the tightness of some races prompted Elections BC to hold off on counting the final ballot boxes before a recount could be done. 

According to BC Elections, final results could take as long as a week to be reported.

With files from Curtis Blandy