Turnout was abysmal tonight. 48%. Pathetic.

Despite my utter joy and jubilation here's my best guess as to what happened...a few factors:

1) The BC Liberals ran a far superior GOTV (Get Out The Vote) campaign and too many BC NDP supporters didn't actually get out to the polls & vote

2) The "free enterprise coalition" was saved. The absolutely horrid campaign of John Cummins and the BC Conservatives brought home most of the federal Conservative British Columbians who had been flirting with the BC Conservatives.

3) Negative advertising works. Voters turn their noses up at it. But, I'm sorry, it does. Positivity doesn't work in BC. Our politics here have always been incredibly polarizing and negative.

4) The Green vote held up. A lot of voters on the left thinking the BC NDP was cruising to victory may have parked their votes in the Greens.

5) Kinder Morgan. This is tied to (4). Dix so stupidly came out against it and it didn't pay off. What it did was gave Christy the ability to jump on the issue and embolden voters' very real fear of NDP job killing economic policies.

6) Incredibly well scripted Liberal/Clark campaign. She was out every day in hard hats, overalls, and always harping on jobs, debt, and the economy. Sure the Liberal record isn't glowing, but the NDP allowed it to be framed like that. We heard little on health care and education from this election, which the NDP is strong on.

7) Clark is an incredible campaigner. When she wasn't be viewed simply as the incumbent Premier and government and pitted directly in comparison to Dix in the context of an election campaign, her confidence numbers soared.

"Go with the devil you know" and the "lesser of two evils" factor. The BC NDP is incredibly dysfunctional in this province. They eat their own. They throw away elections so badly. Its sad...

9) Silent "majority" are why the polls were wrong. Critics always yell the loudest. The hatred and vitriol for Premier Clark and the Liberals was all over the place. Liberal voters came back home to the coalition and decided to go down with the sinking ship - but they supported the cause privately.

I cannot tell you how many voters I observed in the last 2 weeks who were either going to (a) stay home, (b) Vote BC Conservative or (c) centrist/apolitical voter planning to go Dix who flopped to Clark in the campaign. People got scared of the NDP when the campaign got framed on the economy.

And a lot of Liberal voters weren't affirming their love of Clark but rather voting to keep the NDP out of office and the hell away from our economy. They likely were ashamed to tell pollsters or their neighbours they'd vote Liberal given the media narrative and how people on the street talk about Christy Clark.

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At the end of the day, people like my parents quietly went to the polls yesterday and marked their ballots for the BC Liberals. I'm partisan and volunteer but my parents aren't that engaged and care that much. They were never impressed with Clark, and my parents actually voted twice for the Manitoba NDP of Gary Doer in MB because he was a great leader and pragmatic government. But they were scared as hell of the BC NDP and Dix screwing up our future with their incredible anti-resource stances. So my parents, like thousands of British Columbians, kept their mouths shut when their co-workers and friend bashed Christy Clark and maybe even nodded in agreement, but feared the worser alternative and returned the devil we know, and the economy-friendly option back to government.

Its not an overwhelmingly happy narrative or story. Voters acting out of negative intention rather than positive affirmation. But welcome to BC politics.

The other thing that last night proved to me is that the hippie/pot smoking/environmentalist nutcases/latte sipping/yoga/vegan/organic/union/socialist culture that is so in your face in Urban Vancouver is a vocal minority. 50% of voters voted BC Liberal or BC Conservative for the centre-right option. The majority of this province doesn't identify with this sub culture and could plainly see the NDP was beholden to these ideologues who would reap chaos on our prosperity.

End of rant...

I was too busy watching play-off hockey and when I could, the IIHF World Championship to pay much attention to the election campaign. I took a casual interest and read online articles but rarely if ever watched news coverage. casts.

I was not happy with the current Liberal government nor the previous one for which I had voted. In the latter days of the campaign I talked with friends and neighbors about the election. Most of them felt the same way I did about the Libs but were still planning on supporting them. They didn't have signs in their yards either but then I seem to be the only one around here who does put a sign in her yard - so that was nothing new. There are a few dippers in the neighborhood most of them pretty low key as the majority of folks around here are small 'c' conservative. They know what it takes to have a healthy economy and any threat to that process is taken fairly seriously.

On election day we voted Liberal and our candidate won the election and a second term.

They can't whine about popular vote. BC Liberal + BC Conservatives = 50% of popular vote.

BC is literally split in half between support for left/centre-left parties and right/centre-right parties. What a hell of a polarized place.

Never lived in the "heartland" have you? More like NDP was the last name on the ballot and it's too hard to read all that much.
To be fair, there were no signs with little arrows pointing the way to the polling station at the Beer Store so 90% of the NDP vote didn't show up either.

Adrian Dix had clearly no intention of winning this election.He vetoed anyone trying to remind people of the Fiberal track record, or including anything relevant on his fluffy, shallow , style over substance election handouts and adds, stabbing his volenteer campaigners in the back. Candidates like Clair Trevena, who ignored directions from the urban halfwits in Vancouver, and ran their own campaign, based on the concerns of her constituents won by 1700 votes. David Eby ran his own campaign and defeated Christy crunch in her own riding. I hope he replaces Dix , as soon as possible. A guy who dedicated his life to human rights, like freedom of expression, is not going to be told what to say, by anyone. With the amount of money the oil and fish farming industry are able to spend, it is simple for them to buy the co-operation from someone like Dix, with a shopping bag full of money, and a threat to his family and himself .
When the Fiberals lied and lied again, and no one corrected them, the lies became accepted as fact. All lies must be challenged, or they will be accepted as fact, period. Dix knew that, as his fluffy, feel good charade began to lose points in the polls early on ,but do nothing is what he was paid to do? The election results were rigged, from that point on.

Left wing nut comedy hour.