If the election of the B.C. Liberals leads to a doubling of the Kinder Morgan line, and maybe even the building of the Northern gateway, and Andrew Weaver is leading the fight in the Legislature, that could swell the ranks of the Greens, thereby once again splitting the vote. Remember, THE LIBERAL PARTY ACTUALLY TOOK OUT ADS FOR JANE STERK, because they were banking on a split vote there.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/05/10/bc-liberal-ad-green-party.
2 comments:
The evidence of the election in the Victoria area showed the Greens pulled equally from the NDP and Liberals.
Also, there were 24 seats where the Greens did not run, the NDP did not benefit from the lack of a Green candidate, look at the results in Kamloops as one example.
On average a Green voter is not an NDP voter, without a Green candidate they are most likely not to vote.
Bernard: You make a good point--we need to be careful about "vote-splitting" remarks. Greens were as likely to support the Liberals when the Libs brought in the carbon tax and reversed their coal-fired power plans. In addition, they clearly didn't split the NDP vote in Oak Bay, because the NDP (who ended up finishing third) would not have won in the absence of the Green candidate.
So the generalization that 60% of Greens would otherwise support the NDP is just that-- a generalization that does hold either over time (e.g. during carbon tax debate) or in every place (e.g. Oak Bay).
But neither do I think that the Liberals wasted their money in Juan de Fuca. The 60%rule does generally hold in many places, most of the time.
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