The NDP candidate in Kelowna-Lake Country, Cade Desjarlais, says the NDP has a chance and frontrunner Conservative Tracy Gray agrees, saying its a two-party race between Conservatives and NDP.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/NDP
September 15, 2021 - 8:56 AM
Conservative candidate Tracy Gray shocked some listeners during an all-candidates forum last night by saying the NDP were a close second in the race to win the Kelowna-Lake Country riding that she held in the last Parliament.
Cade Desjarlais, the NDP candidate, said in his closing statement at the forum last night, Sept. 14, that it was unfair to characterize the election as a two-party race between the Conservatives and Liberals, suggesting that the NDP had a real chance.
Gray agreed, and then followed up with a press release this morning.
“With results from 2006, 2008 and 2011 in Kelowna-Lake Country showing a two-person race between the Conservatives and the NDP, a current provincial NDP government, and internal provincial polls on the federal election showing a tight race between Conservatives and the NDP — it’s as important as ever that residents vote for a Conservative Party willing to tackle the affordability crisis,” Gray said in the release, which echoed her comments at the forum. “This has become a two-person race between Conservatives and the NDP in British Columbia, and it’s only Conservatives who are willing to fight to make your life more affordable.”
There is a difference between provincial and federal results in the riding, which has slightly different boundaries in each jurisdiction.
READ MORE: Federal Election 2021: Kelowna-Lake Country likely to stay Conservative despite controversy
The provincial Conservatives have never been close to victory in the riding. It’s the B.C. Liberals who have claimed the seat for decades. It’s currently held by Liberal MLA Norm Letnick.
Federally, it has always been a race between the Conservatives — and their predecessor parties like Reform and the Canadian Alliance — versus the Liberals. Stephen Fuhr won the riding for the Liberals in 2015, ending 45 years of second place finishes for the party. He lost to Gray in 2019.
Canada 338, a national organization that compiles polling results from across the county, predicts Gray will get 42 per cent of the federal vote, Tim Krupa for the Liberals will get 33 per cent and Desjarlais will be a distant third at 14 per cent.
“Specific riding estimates like 338 are aggregates of various trends that make assumptions for particular ridings based on historic results, so unless a specific poll has been conducted for a riding (which to our knowledge none has been done for Kelowna–Lake Country), estimates like 338 are not reliable,” Adam Wilson wrote on behalf of Gray in an email to iNFOnews.ca today.
Provincial polls for the riding are no more reliable when it comes to predicting the order of finish federally.
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