Don't be misled by headlines about the September Ipsos-Reid poll. The polling firm's news release starts with "Same Old, Same Old In BC Politics; BC Liberals (45%) Retain Solid Lead Over NDP (31%) and Green Party (17%); MacPhail (53%) Continues to Lead Campbell (39%) in Job Approval ". Those numbers actually show that the NDP and BC Liberals could be in a dead heat in a real election.

If, as is likely, the NDP received 5% from the Greens and a further 5% from the BC Liberals, then those polling results would change to 41% BC Liberal, 41% NDP, 12% Green. There isn't a constituency in the province where the Greens are sufficiently competitive to win a seat. When it comes to casting an actual ballot many voters who may be sympathetic with the Greens may decide that it is far better to vote NDP rather than let a Campbell Liberal win. If just 1 out of 3 of those currently polled vote in that strategic fashion, then the NDP will gain 5 points.

The Ipsos-Reid poll last May concluded that almost half of the BC Liberal support is very soft when respondents said that the reason for their support was the lack of an alternative. Public opinion at the time of the last election showed that many former New Democrats thought that the party should spend some time in opposition in order to sort itself out, and many of those former supporters said they intended to vote Liberal. It is not unreasonable to think that a new NDP leader could win at least 1 out of 4 of those soft Liberal supporters, and that is all it would take to make the Liberals go down by 5% and the NDP goes up by 5%.

Realization that the Ipsos-Reid numbers might reveal the possibly of a dead heat in a real election might be all it takes to help the NDP attract new, credible candidates who will further move support to the NDP. Of course, in addition to advocating for social justice, those candidates need to be equipped with practical policies to encourage economic growth and eliminate provincial deficits. The leading candidates in the NDP leadership race, Krog, Keating, James and Jensen, have all demonstrated that they understand the need for those pragmatic policies.