New Democrats appear on verge of taking 9 of 11 Vancouver seats
With the mail-in ballots still to be counted, Sullivan among those likely to fall to NDP
The B.C. NDP looks set to flip the key battleground riding of Vancouver-False Creek on its way to winning nine of 11 seats in the City of Vancouver.
The New Democratic candidate for False Creek Brenda Bailey had collected 3,356 votes to 2,865 votes for the two-term incumbent Liberal Sam Sullivan, with 83 of 111 polls reporting.
A total of 13,365 mail-in ballots in False Creek had been issued as of midnight Friday, which is among the highest totals in the province and making up almost 30 per cent of the riding's total registered voters.
However, the number of ballots returned is not expected to be released for several days, as mail-in votes and other absentee ballots cannot be counted for at least 13 days.
The apparent win in False Creek, a riding Simon Fraser University political scientist Stewart Prest described as Vancouver's “clearest battleground” for the 2020 election, was part of a good night in the Lower Mainland for the B.C. NDP.
During the campaign, the B.C. Liberals seemed to “micro-target” certain local issues like crime and safety, Prest said, and that strategy was on display in False Creek. During the campaign, Sullivan took a “harder line” on drugs than voters had seen from him in the past, Prest said, including vocally opposing a plan approved last week by Vancouver city council to open an overdose prevention site in the riding.
Sullivan told Postmedia last week that the overdose prevention site was “a horrible idea,” pledging to stop it if he was elected.
Bailey, a tech entrepreneur and political newcomer, was not available for comment by deadline.
Reached Saturday night, Sullivan said: “I knew I was up against some pretty stiff headwinds. ... I accept whatever the citizens decide. I feel very honoured to have represented the riding for so long.”
It will mark Sullivan's first electoral loss, following two terms as MLA for False Creek, a term as Mayor of Vancouver, and four terms on Vancouver council.
In addition to flipping False Creek, the NDP appeared set to hold the other eight Vancouver ridings they won in 2017: Point Grey, Fairview, Fraserview, Hastings, Kensington, Kingsway, Mount Pleasant, and West End.
The only two Vancouver ridings that looked to be held by the Liberals at deadline were Langara and Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson's riding of Quilchena, where he was leading comfortably.
But in the suburbs around Vancouver, including ridings in Richmond, Surrey and North Vancouver, more ridings were flipping from Liberal to NDP.
Asked about the NDP's gains around Metro Vancouver, Sullivan said Saturday night: “I think the B.C. Liberals have had some difficulty of really having a good strong urban presence and approach.”
The B.C. Liberals had held Vancouver-False Creek ever since the riding's creation in 2008, but their share of the vote narrowed every election since then, from 56 per cent in 2009, to 52 per cent in 2013, to 42 per cent in 2017. False Creek was the closest Vancouver race in the 2017 election, with Sullivan winning for the Liberals by just 415 votes.