If history is an indication, there probably aren’t any big surprises coming to the North Shore on election night. With the exception of North Vancouver-Lonsdale, ours are generally regarding as “safe ridings” for the B.C. Liberals.
But the thing about safe seats is, they’re safe only until they’re not.
Though they don’t come in every election, political history is littered with surprises that leave the pundits and pollsters sputtering.
Demographics shift, sometimes drastically. The District of Squamish has grown by about 13 per cent since the last census while West Vancouver is one of the few areas in the Lower Mainland that’s actually losing its residents.
Sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures. Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP cracked open 40 years of Progressive Conservative rule in Edmonton in the midst of the 2015 oil collapse.
Voters also surprise us by suddenly being motivated by an issue that has more to do with their heartstrings than their purse strings. Justin Trudeau shored up a lot of support by being seen as the candidate promising the most for Syrian refugees.
Prior to the 2011 federal election, the NDP were a non-entity in Quebec and they established an enormous beachhead.
And with voter turnout dishearteningly low in most races, it takes just a few motivated subsets of the population to swing a riding. Again, the federal Liberals owe many of their ridings to young people turning out in greater numbers than they typically do on election day.
This is why the notion of a “safe seat” should never dissuade anyone from voting in their riding.
The safer they are, the harder they fall.
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