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The Ridings that Will Decide Battleground BC

Tyee’s new daily feature projects seats up for grabs for NDP and Liberals. And updates as fortunes shift.

David Beers 31 Mar 2005TheTyee.ca

David Beers is the founding editor of The Tyee and serves as current editor-in-chief.

He started the publication in 2003 as an experiment in new ways of doing online journalism in the public interest, including solutions-focused reporting, crowd-funded support and a humane work culture. He loves what The Tyee has become thanks to amazing colleagues and readers.

He has lived in Vancouver since 1991. Before The Tyee he was a senior editor at Mother Jones Magazine and the Vancouver Sun, and his writing has appeared in many U.S. and Canadian outlets. He is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia's graduate school of journalism.

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Would you like a glimpse of the chart that strategists for parties are poring over as they plan their assaults on British Columbia’s voters for the May 17 election? The Tyee offers its exclusive Seat Projection Model here.

The chart has been prepared by Will McMartin and will be part of his daily feature called Battleground BC, to be updated every day on The Tyee’s new section Election Central. The Seat Projection Model breaks the province down into 13 sub-regions. And it places the province’s 79 ridings into five categories: Solid NDP; Likely NDP; Up for Grabs; Likely Liberal and Solid Liberal. McMartin has allocated these ridings to one category or another based on historic voting patterns, recent events and polling.

What his breakdown says is this: Despite the BC Liberals’ lead in recent polls, enough of the 79 ridings are up for grabs that the NDP does have a chance to win the coming election. But everything will have to break near perfectly for the NDP. The numbers as McMartin calculates them are as follows: Solid or Likely NDP: 18. Solid or likely Liberals: 37. Up for grabs: 24. As it takes 40 seats to win the election, the NDP needs to win 22 out of the 24 seats up for grabs, or steal away some ‘likely Liberal’ seats.

McMartin is a respected political analyst who has managed or advised dozens of political campaigns, and lends his insights to the CBC as well as The Tyee, where he’s a regular columnist.

Get oriented, stay tuned

The table presented today will remain as it is until April 19. Until then, McMartin will provide daily updates to review the placement of each riding, offer an overview of the Battleground BC sub-region model, and examine factors which might come into play during the course of the election campaign.

Then, once the election campaign officially gets underway on April 19, as developments arise and circumstances warrant, ridings in the ‘toss-up’ column will be reassigned to the ‘likely’ or ‘solid’ columns for one of the two major parties. It also is possible that seats once thought of as secure for one party or another, may shift into the ‘toss-up’ column or to another party if dramatic events occur province-wide or in that specific riding. McMartin will continue his daily up-dates throughout the writ period, focusing on those ridings and regions vital to the election of one party or the other to government.

By the final week of the election campaign, Battleground B.C.’s Seat Projection Model will estimate seat totals for the Liberal party and the New Democratic Party, and, if required, for any of the province’s myriad minor parties that possibly might win one or more seats.

Voting history and selected demographics will play a key role in our determination of how each one of B.C.’s 79 electoral districts will vote on May 17. But even more important will be the constant input from Tyee readers across the province, who, we hope, will provide useful insights, valuable information and keen observations, and of course argue if they disagree with our picks. We invite you to let us know what is happening in your community, riding or region, or your view of developments on the campaign trail.

Strategies focus on ‘toss-ups’

“One of the first things political strategists do when plotting an election campaign,” says McMartin, “is undertake a process of elimination. That is, they eliminate from their plans those constituencies they are certain to win, and those they are certain to lose. The ones remaining are those which might be described as ‘toss-ups,’ constituencies which might be won by their own candidate, or by their opponent.

“It is here, in the key battleground constituencies, that they will devise their election strategy and devote the bulk of their campaign efforts. That is because it is these small number of constituencies that most likely will determine the outcome of the election.

“Consider that in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican strategist Karl Rove scheduled not a single appearance by George W. Bush in either Utah, which he was certain to win, or Massachusetts, which he was certain to lose. Instead, Rove had Bush make repeated visits to such vital ‘swing’ states as Ohio and Florida, and, in the end, the GOP incumbent won both and won reelection. “Similarly, in the 2004 Canadian federal election, Alberta received few visits by either Liberal prime minister Paul Martin or Conservative leader Stephen Harper. The Liberals knew that they would make few if any gains in the province, regardless of how hard they worked and the resources they expended, while the Conservatives knew they would retain the bulk of the seats with minimal effort. Consequently, Martin made frequent visits to British Columbia and other provinces which could produce gains, while Harper spent the bulk of his time in seat-rich Ontario.

“That same process of elimination has already taken place in British Columbia as the province prepares for the May 17 provincial general election. Long ago, strategists with the governing Liberal party and the opposition New Democratic Party eliminated from their campaign plans those seats they were certain to win, and those they were certain to lose.

“For example, the Liberals know that the NDP will easily retain MLA Jenny Kwan’s Vancouver-Mount Pleasant riding, while the New Democrats understand that the Liberals will retain MLA Colin Hansen’s Vancouver-Quilchena district by a comfortable margin. Consequently, neither party will devote many resources to these two ridings. There are many more like them.

Check out Election Central

“This is not to say that it is impossible for upsets to occur. One only has to recall Social Credit’s stunning breakthrough in 1952, when the party went from obscurity to government, or the Liberals’ 1991 emergence from the political wilderness to official opposition. And the 2001 campaign is still vivid for many British Columbians, as the Liberals swept 77 seats, including many rarely captured by centre-right political parties, and the NDP was reduced to just two. “But it is evident that such results are rare and infrequent. And so political strategists develop their election plans based on what is likely to occur, not what ‘might’ happen once every two or three decades.”

As you can see, McMartin has a plenty of insight to share about the coming election. To gain from it every day, go to The Tyee’s new section Election Central (www.electioncentral.ca) and click on the Battleground BC button in the right hand column.

And look for more features, including an exclusive election blog, to appear at Election Central in the days to come. We invite you to make Election Central www.electioncentral.ca the first place you go every day to come up to speed on the issues, the scuttlebutt, and the unfolding odds on Battleground BC.

David Beers is founding editor of The Tyee.  [Tyee]

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