The Impact of Party Affiliation on the Election Results

Because of an error by the BC Conservatives in this election we can measure how much impact party affiliation may have on the results or not.    Five BC Conservative candidates inadvertently were left of the BC Conservative candidate list submitted to the Elections BC, they shortly afterwards disavowed one of those candidates.   They also dropped three other candidates before nominations closed because of problems with them.

• Bill Clarke in Vancouver Quilchena 
• Christine Clark in Burnaby Lougheed 
• Mike Patras in Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows
• Wayne Marklund in Burnaby North

The candidates dropped by the party well into the election

• Jeff Sprague in North Vancouver Lonsdale on April 23rd about a drunk driving allegation - the party managed to replace him before nominations closed
• Ian Tootill in Vancouver False Creek on April 23rd for comments online
• Mischa Popoff in Boundary Similkameen on April 25th for comments online 
• Rob Herbert in Vancouver West End on April 28th for comments online

Since six of these candidates are all in Metro Vancouver and ran without any affiliation we can make some comparisons

Let us first compare results in the Burnaby - New Westminster - Tri Cities area
Burnaby Loughheed where Christine Clarke ran
Liberals         NDP         Green      Non-Afil BCCP
 7,322 41.56%  7,637 43.34% 1,417 8.04%  1,244 7.06%
Burnaby North where Wayne Marklund ran
Liberals         NDP         Green      Non-Afil BCCP
 9,376 47.35%  8,610 43.48% 1,359 6.86%    455 2.30%

And now where the BC Conservative affiliation was on the ballot
Coquitlam Burke Mountain

Liberals          NDP        Green        BCCP
 8,868 50.72%  6,420 36.72% 1,010 5.78%    941 5.78%
Port Coquitlam

Liberals          NDP        Green        BCCP
 7,412 36.86% 10,588 52.65%     0 0.00%  1,377 6.85%
New Westminster - Former Conservative MP Paul Forseth ran for the Conservatives here.

Liberals          NDP        Green        BCCP
 8,030 33.90% 11,464 48.39% 1,938 8.18%  1,147 4.84%


Christine Clarke ran a year ago for the BC Conservatives in the Port Moody by-election so had a campaign team and some name recognition in the area, I would expect here to do better

The results for the two candidates that were formally on the ballot as BC Conservatives had results almost as good as the results for Christive Clark and much better results than Wayne Marklund.  

We then have the two Maple Ridge Ridings
Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows where Mike Patras ran

Liberals         NDP        Green      Non-Afil BCCP
9,860 45.79% 9,179 42.63% 1,953 9.07%    540 2.51%
Maple Ridge Mission - Conservative candidate Chad Thompson

Liberals         NDP        Green       BCCP
9,408 46.65% 8,032 39.82% 1,654 8.20%  1,075 5.33%

The BC Conservative affliatated candidate did significantly better even though in my opinion Mike Patras ran a stronger campaign than Chad Thompson

Then we have the Westside of Vancouver
Vancouver Quilchena where Bill Clarke ran

Liberals           NDP        Green       Non-Afil BCCP
13,302 64.74%  5,078 25.32% 1,426  7.08%  593 2.95%
Vancouver False Creek were dropped BCCP candidate Ian Toothill ran

Liberals           NDP        Green       Dropped BCCP
 9,407 51.87%  6,764 37.29% 1,644  9.06%  180 0.99%

Vancouver West End where dropped BCCP candidate Ron Herbert ran

Liberals            NDP       Green       Dropped BCCP
 4,818 28.19%  9,776 57.20% 1,897 11.10%  122 0.71%


Ridings with Conservative on the ballot:
Vancouver Point Grey

Liberals            NDP       Green        BCCP
 9,377 43.63% 10,162 47.28% 1,431  6.66%  345 1.61%
Vancouver Langara

Liberals            NDP       Green        BCCP
 9,365 53.04%  6,727 38.10%   916  5.19%  607 3.44%
Vancouver Fraserview  

Liberals            NDP       Green        BCCP
 9,127 47.19% 8 ,581 44.37% 1,053  5.44%  578 2.99%

In this case I can not see any clear pattern that shows the BC Conservative name on the ballot made much difference since all six of these candidates had such dismal results.   I would expect Bill Clarke to do somewhat better because he was the MP for the area for the PCs from 1972 to 1984

The BC Conservative results overall for these 11 Conservative candidates and two dropped candidates are very low, but the the pattern I can see is that the BC Conservative name pushed the candidates up a bit.   With BC Conserative on the ballot the average result was 4.41%, without it was 3.71% for the four unaffiliated but still connected and 2.75% when you look at the two dropped candidates that still ran.

I wish I had more data points to work with, this is a very small sample and is effected by the fact that two of the candidates without Conservative on the ballot should have been among the best results for the BC Conservatives.   I do not think this data can be used to make any predictions on future results with any accuracy.