B.C. NDP and Conservatives seek to limit vote-splitting in rare election with five high-profile parties

Analysts say the small gap in the polls between the NDP and Conservatives means the outcome of the 2026 snap election could come down to how well the Greens, OneBC and CentreBC parties perform in a handful of tight races.

Green Leader Emily Lowan is hoping to give disillusioned NDP voters a different option, while CentreBC Leader Elenore Sturko and OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie are expending more energy trying to pick off the edges of the Conservative’s coalition.

Their ability to pick up votes could be constrained, however, with analysts saying fears among progressive voters of a Conservative victory could limit Green support, while CentreBC and OneBC are too new and running fewer than 40 candidates each.

Jillian Oliver, a Green strategist and former campaign manager, said Lowan’s strategy since becoming leader of the party last fall has been to take it in a more progressive direction than either of her most recent predecessors, Sonia Furstenau and newly minted CentreBC candidate Andrew Weaver.

She said that Lowan has also attempted to take ground in policy areas left open by the NDP, such as child care and housing, that have always formed a bedrock of Green promises, while also swinging for the fences with a new wealth tax targeting British Columbians worth more than $50 million.

“Andrew and Sonia would both answer a question about where they fit on the political spectrum [by] talking about the issues and how to make a difference in people’s lives, whereas I think that Lowan has campaigned more as a traditional left-wing, worker-first party,” said Oliver.

This shift includes Lowan’s support of striking BCGEU workers last fall, as well as the nominating of candidates like Carolyn Howe, president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association, in Victoria-Swan Lake.

Mike McKinnon, Western Canada director at Enterprise Canada and former deputy communications director to the late NDP premier John Horgan, said the problem for the Greens is they risk being squeezed by strategic voting, with supporters voting for the NDP to keep the Conservatives at bay.

He said there are a handful of ridings where less than 100 votes could make the difference in who wins the seat.

“While the Green strategy is to try and take seats away from the NDP, the reality is that most of their voters want to prevent a Conservative government,” said McKinnon.

A new poll from Leger has the Conservatives with 42 per cent support among decided voters, while the NDP have 40 per cent and the Greens have nine per cent.

OneBC has four per cent support among decided voters, according to Leger, while CentreBC has three per cent, with the firm surveying 1,000 British Columbians over the age of 18 between Oct. 9-12. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent.

The numbers show a four-point drop for the Green’s since Leger’s last poll in late September, with the NDP receiving a four point bump in return. The Conservatives, meanwhile, saw their support rise by three per cent, with CentreBC dropping by two points and OneBC by one point.

“The race has consolidated to the two main parties and, like expected, the results are dropping for the Greens, OneBC and CentreBC,” said Steve Mossop, executive vice-president with Leger.

“The fact that the NDP didn’t drop again this week says that it is a tighter race than what I maybe would have thought last week. It seemed like the NDP had the wind out of their sails; they were losing momentum. The Conservatives were on a roll, but now it’s like the only reason they’re both up is they’ve stolen share from the smaller parties.”

According to the poll, 37 per cent of the voters who plan to vote for the smaller party say their vote is movable. Of Green voters, 37 per cent said they would vote for the NDP if they don’t have a Green candidate in the riding while 60 per cent of OneBC supporters said they would vote Conservative.

Among CentreBC supporters, the largest share, 47 per cent, said they would vote for a party other than the NDP or Conservatives if there is no candidate of their preferred party in their riding.

David Black, a Royal Roads political communications professor, said Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system inherently encourages strategic voting because candidates are selected by riding, not by overall vote share.

His UBC colleague, Stewart Prest, agreed, saying that as long as the margin between the NDP and Conservatives are thin, vote-splitting is likely to be kept to a minimum.

Andrew Reeve, a senior consultant with Earnscliffe and former press secretary for the B.C. Liberals, said in ridings like Surrey-Guildford, which the NDP won by 22 votes in 2024, the presence of a Green candidate this time around could still shift the race in favour of the Conservatives.

On the other side, he said the lack of a Green candidate combined with the addition of a OneBC candidate in a riding like Kelowna Centre could benefit the NDP. The Conservatives won the riding by 40 votes in 2024, with the Greens receiving 1,111 votes.

“We’ve never really had to face five-way splits in certain ridings,” said Reeve, who said it is a new challenge for the NDP and Conservatives to deal with.

Geoff Meggs, Horgan’s former chief of staff, said he sees the possibility for a similar situation to 2017 where the Greens picked up three seats and were able to hold the balance of power.

“What we’ve seen in these very tight elections is sometimes the legislature is formed by the election, but the government is created by negotiations after the election, and that could be the case again, and that will be very interesting to see,” said Meggs.