What do the by-election results mean?

First of Port Moody- Coquitlam, my estimate of the result was rather close

Candidate                Result         My estimate

Joe Trasolini   NDP     6070 54.36%     6500 54.17%
Dennis Marsden  Liberal 3377 30.24%     3700 30.83%
Christine Clark Cons    1720 15.40%     1800 15.00%
TOTAL                  11167           12000

The results confirm the BC Conservatives are not a relevant factor outside of the traditional conservative parts of BC.

Meanwhile over in Chilliwack-Hope I missed the mark.  Here are the results and my estimate
Candidate                result       my estimate
Gwen O'Mahoney  NDP     5772 41.12%  3500 24.48%
Laurie Throness Liberal 4399 31.39%  5200 36.36%
John Martin     Cons    3548 25.32%  5800 40.56%
Lewis Dahlby    Libert   294  2.10%   300  2.10%
TOTAL                  14013        14300

I was on the mark with the total vote and I was in the right range with the Liberals, I just misread how well the NDP could do and how badly the BC Conservatives did do.  Their results were almost completely reversed from each other.

What is clear is that the polls showing the Conservatives at over 20% and tied with the Liberals are not accurate, the more realistic ones are the ones that have the Liberals in the low 30s and the Conservatives at 15% and NDP at 45%.

The BC Conservatives will now be expected to close up shop since they did do badly today and will be directly blamed for the one loss.   They will not be able to raise money or find high quality candidates.

All in all this is a decent result for Christy Clark, clearly the Liberals are not dead and they are the rightful free enterprise party of BC.  She is still headed towards a loss next May, but that is less certain now than it was a couple of hours ago.   John Van Dongen meanwhile looks rather silly in having crossed the floor.   There is no danger of any MLAs following him.