The B.C. NDP caucus has pledged to take a “clear and honest look” at its campaign in the wake of the party’s Oct. 24 election defeat.
“We are very focused on making sure that British Columbians understand that we are standing for them, that we have their backs, and we will continue to do that work in the Opposition caucus,” said interim leader Jennifer Whiteside on Thursday.
David Eby’s decision to call a snap election was met with record-low voter turnout, with fewer than half of eligible voters in the province casting a ballot.
Preliminary results show the NDP suffered the most, earning about 270,000 fewer votes than in the 2024 election.
The B.C. Conservatives won 63 seats to form a “supermajority” government.
“Clearly it was a mistake,” said former attorney general and deputy premier Niki Sharma of the election call.
Aileen Machell, a political strategist and Eby’s former deputy chief of staff, said the party needs to do a full analysis of the election campaign to fully understand what went wrong.
She said the NDP’s message on the campaign trail didn’t resonate the way it had hoped it would.
“I did think that we saw the message change and the narrative change week by week in the NDP campaign, as well,” said Machell. “So there wasn’t a consistent through-line there, which maybe made it a little bit harder to follow for some voters.”
When Eby announced the election on Sept. 22, much of his message was focused on the need to counter economic threats from the Trump administration, arguing that the NDP needed a fresh mandate from voters to do so.
Later in the campaign, that focus shifted to cost-of-living issues and grave warnings about where a Conservative government might take the province.
“I think that having a positive, hopeful vision that you can share with voters really is important,” said Machell. “And so I do think that this is going to be one of the big challenges for [Whiteside] is that she’s got to start this work of rebuilding and setting that positive vision and righting the ship before we get to the leadership race.”
Machell pointed to the NDP’s losses in Surrey and other parts of the Lower Mainland, where the B.C. Conservatives flipped multiple ridings previously considered safe for the NDP.
“In these communities, obviously there is something happening there that the NDP needs to do to get out and listen more and really tap into the things that the people there are caring about to try to get those voters who used to vote NDP and did in the last campaign to come back and hear the vision that the B.C. NDP has for the province,” said Machell.
B.C. NDP candidate for Loyal Wooldridge, who is trailing Conservative Kristina Loewen in the Kelowna Centre riding, told 1150 AM’s The Early Edition last week the party is going to have to rebuild trust with voters.
“As soon as you’re disconnected from how people are feeling, you’re going to lose,” said Wooldridge.
He said the party has a chance to reconnect with its grassroots, and to focus on Gen Z voters and communities beyond of strongholds in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
“It think it’s actually an opportunity to rebuild with a different strategy, with a fresh vision, and quite clearly there’s going to be four years for the New Democrats to do that,” said Wooldridge.
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