What I will be posting here is something many people 'know' but no one has really spent a lot of time looking at the numbers and long term trends. The NDP can not win a two party race to be government in BC, they need there to be at least one strong third party to allow them to win the election.
In BC the NDP has managed to get above 40% of the vote in six elections since 1933. The five elections in which the NDP got its highest percentage of the vote it lost the elections.
In fact in the five elections the NDP managed to get the most votes in BC, 1979, 1983, 1986, 2005 and 2009 are all ones that they lost. The one thing these elections have in common is that the top two parties took over 87% of the vote. The elections were two party races. The evidence seems to say that the NDP can not win in BC in a two party race.
In the 26 elections since I was born in BC, provincial and federal, the NDP managed to win six elections, that is they were the party to win the most seats in BC in the election. The NDP won provincial elections in 1972, 1991 and 1996. They also won the majority of the seats in BC in the 1988 federal election and were the largest party federally in BC in 1972 and 1965. In these elections the NDP managed to get between 33% and 40% of the vote.
What these six election have in common is that there were at least three strong parties in the election and in several of them four.
What it comes down to in BC is that as long as there is only two parties realistically able to win seats, the NDP can not win the elections.
If in 2013 there are only two parties in the election, the NDP will lose again. It is as simple as that.
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