The Vancouver Scrum

Finally, a large-sample poll of British Columbians' voting intentions! Ipsos topped up two nationwide federal election poll earlier this month with a "BC Booster" sample of 800 (the same size as the company's BC omnibus polls) to give a grand total of 1066 British Columbians quizzed on their federal voting intentions.

The Liberals lead the New Democrats 38-32 in the inner Lower Mainland (Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, the North Shore); the Conservatives are in third place with just 21% of decided voters. Conservatives lead the Liberals in the outer Lower Mainland, 42-25, with the NDP just behind at 22%. Consider, though, that four seats of the suburban Lower Mainland's eleven decisively favour right-wing parties regardless of trends in the rest of the world; even if the Conservatives are down in BC, the drop in these seats will be small, maybe to a mere 60% of the vote instead of 70-plus. (To give you an idea, if the Conservatives are at an average of 60% in 4 ridings of 11; they'd at about 28% in the other 7, with the other 2 parties commensurately stronger in those 7 ridings that aren't solidly conservative! Tricky!)

On the Island and Sunshine Coast, it's close: Conservatives at 30, NDP at 26, Liberals 22 -- and with a sample of just over 150 people, it's a statistical dead heat. The Greens are strongest here, with 18% of decided respondents picking them, leading to speculation on electionprediction.org about a Green win in Saanich-Gulf Islands. How those six seats break out depends on how the votes are concentrated across the Island.

In the Interior and North, the Conservatives lead the New Democrats 37-27 with the Liberals trailing at 23. That looks good for the Conservatives, but keep your eyes on one seat: Skeena-Bulkley Valley. Former BC Treaty Chief Commissioner and Haida higher-up Miles Richardson took the Liberal nomination the old-fashoned way: by winning his nomination meeting over four other Grits. Strong support among First Nations voters (28% of the riding's population) combined with the Liberal bases in the towns and cities could put Richardson past low-profile Conservative incumbent Andy Burton.

Ipsos projects that the Conservatives would take 23-25 seats (down from 27) based on those numbers, the Liberals 6-8 (from 5), and the NDP 4-6 (from 2). Of course, this is all subject to change; the survey ended on June 8th, three weeks before E-day.

My gut sense is that Ipsos may be overestimating the Conservatives' potential take based on those numbers and somewhat underestimating the NDP's. The Conservatives have a large surplus of support in the Fraser Valley and Okanagan, while the NDP's support outside the Interior concentrates into the Burrard Peninsula and most of Vancouver Island. Regardless, that poll seems to indicate that a whole bunch of seats are in knife-edge situation, where a shift of a couple of points can switch a half-dozen seats' results.

Other polls: The latest Toronto Star/Ekos poll has the Conservatives out in front, 34-30. As with other polls, the difference is less a Conservative gain (from 30% last month to 34 now), than the Liberals blleding support all over. Meanwhile, the CPAC/SES tracker has the gap between the Liberals and Conservatives closing to just 1% nationwide as of Friday. More from SES tomorrow; with 2 fresh days of data, we might see if this gap-closing is a just a blip or a full-blown trend. COMPAS polled 12 "hot" ridings last week for CanWest: Backlash? What backlash? Ujjal Dosanjh is doing well in Vancouver South, while Backlash! What a backlash! Chuck Cadman is getting his revenge on Conservative Jasbir Cheema after Cheema out-organized Cadman for the Conservative nomination in North Surrey. Meanwhile, the NDP stars -- Jack Layton and Ed Broadbent -- are cruising to victory in their ridings, while "Landslide Anne" McLellan is in a dead heat; if she wins in Edmonton Centre, it'll be by her usual margin.