Elections BC has released the area-by-area breakdown of the provincial election results, as MLAs head back to Victoria with the ultimate outcome of that May 9 vote still hanging in the balance.
The data from Elections BC, which are still preliminary, show NDP incumbent Nicholas Simons enjoyed broad support across Powell River-Sunshine Coast en route to winning re-election to his fourth term as MLA.
The numbers reveal Simons placed first or tied for first in all but eight of the riding’s 72 polling areas, with Green Kim Darwin and Liberal Mathew Wilson garnering the most votes in four each.
Darwin finished third overall in the field of four candidates, 97 votes behind Wilson, and the area-by-area results indicate her strongest support was in the Sunshine Coast part of the riding, where she had around 600 more votes than Wilson.
Wilson, on the other hand, enjoyed a margin of roughly 400 votes over Darwin in the Powell River area.
Despite slipping from 55.2 per cent to 50.7 per cent of the vote, Simons’ support followed a similar pattern as 2013. He won about 57.5 per cent of the vote in the Powell River area, and roughly 47 per cent in the Sunshine Coast. In 2013 the overall percentages were bigger but the difference was still around 10 per cent.
Liberal support was down 8.3 per cent from 2013.
The Greens were the only party to see an increase in vote-share from 2013 to 2017, with Darwin’s 24.2 per cent doubling the previous Green candidate’s showing in 2013.
