The recent week-long summer sitting of the legislature was another reminder that the biggest challenge the B.C. Liberals are facing in their re-election bid may be complacency.
The biggest threat to the party’s hold on government is that those voters simply stay home next spring, thinking the election outcome is in the bag.
Certainly, even NDP MLAs let slip a couple of times during that week-long session about how the B.C. Liberals were going to address a public policy after the spring election – prophesies based on an assumed B.C. Liberal victory.
Adding to the government side’s optimism is the fact that the B.C. Liberal party is awash in tons of cash, while the NDP faces ongoing and very serious financial challenges.
Unlike in 2013, when an apparent looming NDP victory convinced the business community to fork over some major dough to the party, nothing remotely like that is happening this time around. The party is having serious fundraising troubles (it apparently runs a significant operating deficit each month) and party membership is very low. As for the B.C. Liberals, meanwhile, the party’s own internal tracking polls apparently show it enjoys healthy leads in pretty well every riding it currently holds (the party doesn’t do province-wide polling; just the seats that are deemed winnable).
It’s interesting to compare the situation both parties currently find themselves in with the ones they were in six months before the 2013 election.
Back then, the B.C. Liberals were a disorganized and dispirited bunch. The government was beset with internal bickering over Premier Christy Clark’s leadership and the party itself seemed incapable of running an effective election campaign.
Fast forward three years and a completely different scenario has taken hold. The B.C. Liberal party seems to be in perpetual motion: nominating candidates at a steady pace and raising money at an even quicker pace.
The party employs a number of full-time field organizers, who have been working those potentially “winnable” ridings almost since the last campaign finished.
Throw in the fact that the provincial economy is humming along, plus the historical fact that the so-called “free enterprise coalition” has never lost an election in more than 40 years unless that coalition splits the vote, and a picture of near-invincibility starts to emerge.
But keep in mind B.C. elections are almost always close, and any significant slippage in the B.C. Liberal vote due to complacency could be just enough to push the NDP, despite all those obstacles standing in its way, to power next May.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global B.C.
