The South Okanagan-West Kootenay riding is a “toss-up” in the upcoming election, according to poll projection site 338Canada.com.
The project’s most recent (Oct. 9) numbers show Conservative Helena Konanz favoured to win the riding — but not by much.
Currently, Konanz is projected to receive 30.9 per cent of the popular vote, while NDP candidate Richard Cannings sits close behind with 29.2 per cent. The Liberal Party’s Connie Denesiuk is also projected to take a significant chunk of the vote at 23.4 per cent. But, with the margins of error in 338Canada’s projection hovering between plus or minus 5.5. and 6.7 per cent for the top three candidates, the race is still very open.
Green Party candidate Tara Howse and the People’s Party of Canada’s Sean Taylor are currently estimated to take 12.4 and 3.4 per cent respectively.
The numbers get a tad further apart when looking at the odds of who will take the riding.
According to 338, the Conservative Party has a 60.6 per cent chance of turning South Okanagan-West Kootenay blue, while the NDP has a 37.5 per cent shot at keeping the riding. The Liberal Party is also on the board, with a 2 per cent shot at clinching the riding.
South Okanagan-West Kootenay was a new district in the 2015 election as per the 2012 federal election boundaries redistribution. The riding’s first and only MP was a member of the NDP.
Previous to the redrawn boundaries, the riding was made up mostly of the former electoral districts British Columbia Southern Interior and Okanagan-Coquihalla, which in the 41st parliament had an NDP and a Conservative MP, respectively.
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