BC Conservatives ahead of NDP in poll for first time, BC United 'facing political wipeout'

The Conservative Party of British Columbia is now more popular among voters than the NDP, a pollster has claimed.

Mainstreet Research’s latest survey suggests the insurgent party is backed by 38.9 per cent of decided voters in the province.

That’s compared to 36.2 per cent for the NDP, 15.3 per cent for BC United and 6.7 per cent for the BC Greens.

The poll, however, is somewhat unusual, with BC United’s old name – the BC Liberal Party – used with half of the participants, and the results obtained using both names merged.

“The latest snapshot of the BC political landscape paints a grim scene for Kevin Falcon and the BC United Party,” said Quito Maggi, president and CEO of Mainstreet Research, on the pollster’s website.

“Even in the unlikely scenario where they choose to reverse course on the disastrous party branding exercise, it’s unlikely they would have enough time to recover before the next election.”

That election is scheduled to be held on or before Oct. 19.

Maggi added that the BC United chief’s predicament is not unique to him, however.

“Falcon is not alone in facing a political wipeout; both Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh are facing similar challenges,” he said. “The only thing Trudeau and Singh have on their side is time, something Kevin Falcon is quickly running out of.”

When Falcon was described as the leader of the BC Liberals in the survey, only 15.8 per cent of those polled gave him their backing.

Rustad’s BC Conservatives were backed by 40.1 per cent, with the NDP at 33.8 per cent.

With Falcon accurately described as the leader of BC United, he attracted the support of 11 per cent of participants versus 33 per cent for the NDP and 32 per cent for the BC Conservatives.

The top-line figure – which put the BC Conservatives ahead of its rivals on 38.9 per cent – was obtained by combining the two sets of results, Mainstreet said.

“While the BC Liberal brand did perform slightly better, the difference came mostly from federal Liberal voters,” the pollster explained.

“Among the sample offered BC United as an option, federal Liberal voters 84.1 per cent said they would support the provincial NDP versus those offered the BC Liberal ballot, 77.4 per cent said they would support the provincial NDP. The BC Liberal vote share among these federal Liberals increases from just 4.5 per cent to 18.6 per cent in the sample using BC Liberal.”

In the realm of federal politics, meanwhile, the poll found that the Tories continue to reign supreme in BC, with the backing of 55.8 per cent of respondents.

The Liberals came second with 17.8 per cent, while the NDP trailed in third with 15.8 per cent.

The poll was conducted between April 23 and 24 and relied on a sample of 962 adults.