Town and country: NDP saw success in cities, but failures in rural B.C. were costly

TheNDP's lack of success outside of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland cost the partythe seats they needed to form a government in the 2017 provincial election.

And depending on the results of recounts and absentee ballots, it could hand the B.C. Liberals a razor-thin majority.

In all regions of the province outside of the Lower Mainland, the NDP saw a drop in itsvote total compared to 2013.

Note: numbers for the Green Party may be inflated because the party did notruna full slate of candidates in 2013

And a quick look at where NDP Leader John Horgan spent his campaign suggests that areas outside of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island were less important to his party's strategy.

UBC political science professor Gerald Baier saidignoring these rural ridings is a risky electoral prospect.

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"For the NDP, that strategy of staying in the Lower Mainland paid off because they did flip the seats they needed to flip," Baier said. "But they came up short because they didn't go up north."

"So it really is consequential for them now.

"I think it also speaks to the enormous challenge the NDP have to get over that hump. If you focus on one place you have the potential to lose in another. And there just really is very little margin for error in the NDP."

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The NDP did manage to put together enough seats to cost the Liberals their majority by taking enough of their seats in the Lower Mainland, Baier said.

The Liberals' policies and record appeared to fallflat with Lower Mainland voters andthe NDP had an efficient strategy there.

"Realistically, they could've got one or two outside of the Lower Mainland, but they managed to get the big ones in the Lower Mainland," he said.

"So from a bang for your buck perspective, I think they did the right thing."

He also thinks that in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island,the NDP may havebenefittedfrom a three-way split between themselves, the Liberals and the Green Party.

"There were people who said they're not ready to vote NDP, but they're fed up with the Liberals, so they park their vote with the Greens," he said.

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'Too many seats'

While it's tempting to viewthis as another example of the age-old urban-rural divide, Baier said the nature of some of the ridings the NDP won complicates that.

Many Vancouver Island ridings have elements of both urban and rural communities and communities like Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Mission blur the line between urban and rural.

He saidpart of the NDP strategy was successfully appealing to those ridings.

"One of the key campaign planks was eliminating tolls and I think people have a daily reminder of the election promise that's in their favour," he said.

Still, he does not think parties can bank on success by focusing solely on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

"There's too many seats outside of the Lower Mainland," he said. "Just like you can't win Canada without Quebec, You have to be able to have some presence in the rest of the province to win.

"If you [try], it's hubris. You can't pull it off."