B.C. NDP faces rebuilding after a punishing election defeat
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The British Columbia New Democratic Party has been cut down to 28 seats after a sharp rebuke from voters, forcing it to choose an interim leader and figure out how to serve as an opposition after a decisive loss to the provincial Conservatives.
The British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) was cut to 28 seats after the provincial election, while the Conservatives won 63 seats. The defeat, though not as crushing as the party’s 2001 collapse, still represents a steep fall from the 47 seats the NDP held while in government.
Former deputy chief of staff to Premier David Eby, Aileen Machell, said the party will have to rebuild itself so it can act as a serious official opposition and defend the record of the NDP government over the past nine years.
A large share of the blame for the loss has been aimed at Premier Eby’s choice to call a snap election roughly two years into the party’s four-year mandate. Eby first defended the move by pointing to threats from U.S. tariffs under President Donald Trump and the “Trump-style” tactics of the provincial Conservatives. After the abrupt resignation of Tory leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay and the appointment of interior MLA Lorne Doerkson as the new leader, the strategy was widely seen as having backfired. Eby later tried to shift the campaign toward affordability and taxing the wealthy, but the message never really took hold.
"The election was necessary because of the threats posed by U.S. tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump and the Trump-style politics of the B.C. Conservatives," Eby said on the campaign trail.
After the results came in, Eby announced on election night that he would step down as party leader, setting the NDP on the path to selecting an interim leader and mapping out its opposition strategy.