NDP ‘largely defeated themselves’ as 17,000 Tri-Cities voters stayed home

Despite nicer weather on Saturday than the torrential downpour of election day 2024, a total of 17,062 Tri-Cities voters stayed home this time around.

That dip in voter turnout is either evidence of a blunder by Premier David Eby or a deeper disconnect between the NDP and the people who elected them, depending on who you ask.

Across the five ridings that span the Tri-Cities, the drop in votes ranged from 11 percent in Port Moody-Burquitlam to16 percent decline in in Port Coquitlam where more than 4,000 residents who cast a ballot in 2024 neglected to make it to the polls for the snap election.

Besides straining volunteers and donors by scheduling the provincial election one week after the municipal election, Eby also failed to appreciate the deep divisions within B.C.’s larger conservative movement, according to UBC political science lecturer Stewart Prest.

“The conservative movement was essentially settling into a lively little civil war about who was going to represent conservatism in the province,” Prest said.

CentreBC was also in the process of becoming an established party, he added. However, Eby’s election call “short-circuited all of that,” by uniting conservative factions against a common enemy.

“It was almost like a supervillain in a Marvel movie doing the one thing that can reunite the Avengers so they can come back and defeat the evil mastermind,” Prest said. “David Eby is the evil mastermind [in this comparison].”

Besides failing to provide “a really convincing justification” for calling the election, Eby’s messaging tended to be negative and polarizing, Prest said.

“Voters decided not to go with the Conservatives but rather just to sit this one out,” he summarized.

Rick Glumac was one of the many NDP incumbents who lost his seat in Saturday’s election.

After receiving 13,488 votes in 2024, Glumac’s vote total fell by more than 3,800 votes, or 29 percent in 2026. Overall, voter turnout in the riding was down by 3,043 votes.

For Glumac, Saturday’s defeat is much deeper than the election call. It’s a sign of a troubling disconnect.

“Most British Columbians don’t know what the NDP stands for right now,” Glumac wrote in a lengthy social media post. “Somewhere along the way we lost clarity, both internally and with the public, about who and what we were fighting for.”

Moving forward, the NDP needs to demonstrate progress on affordability, homelessness, addiction, and hospital wait times, Glumac stated.

“And when we say we’re going to do something – we need to do it! That’s how you build trust,” he added.

While the decline in turnout was most acute for the NDP, vote counts also dropped for some Tri-Cities Conservative Party candidates.

Victorious Conservative Party candidate for Coquitlam-Burke Mountain Ryan Peterson garnered 800 fewer votes than fellow Conservative Stephen Frolek received in 2024.

Support for the Conservative Party was likewise down by about six percent in Port Coquitlam and two percent in New Westminster-Coquitlam.

However, both Matt Liang and former Anmore Mayor John McEwen bucked that trend as Conservative Party support was up five percent in Coquitlam-Maillardville and approximately two percent Port Moody-Burquitlam.

While Saturday’s result was seen as a blue wave, Prest said he wasn’t sure that was a fair interpretation.

While the Conservative Party kept their core supporters, the B.C. electorate is still divided.

“What we’re seeing here is the NDP managed to alienate their own supporters and largely defeated themselves,” Prest said.

Even NDP candidates in relatively safe ridings saw their vote totals dwindle.

Support for NDP incumbent Jennifer Whiteside in New Westminster-Coquitlam slumped by about 27 percent.

Whiteside still won with 50 percent of the vote, down from 59 percent in 2024.

Similarly, Mike Farnworth received 4,000 fewer votes than in 2024 than in 2026, a drop of 29 percent. Despite the decline, Farnworth still won his seventh straight election.

In Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, support for NDP incumbent Jodie Wickens fell by about one-third, or approximately 3,700 votes.

Coquitlam-Maillardville incumbent Jennifer Blatherwick also saw an approximately 32 percent decline.

The Green Party was largely immune to the downturn as, with the exception of a slight dip in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, the party saw their numbers tick up across the region.

Support for the Greens was up by 189 votes, or 11 percent, in Port Coquitlam. The party had their strongest showing in New Westminster-Coquitlam, where the vote total increased by 458 votes, a 19 percent uptick.

While Green support may have waned in a “knife-edge election,” Prest credited party leader Emily Lowan for building, “a more positive message than either of the two leading parties.”

With the election over and without having David Eby as a common enemy, premier-elect Lorne Doerkson will likely be challenged by the deep divisions in both the province and within the party.

“There isn’t really a true reconciliation between two groups where one has broad sympathy with the politics of MAGA and the idea of Canada falling closer in line with the United States . . . and another group that feels like Canada needs to do whatever it can to defend its sovereignty.”

Across the province, voter turnout was 48 percent.

All vote totals are unofficial until certified.