Kamloops candidates hear NDP supporters might go Liberal this election

Softening support for the NDP ahead of the April 28 federal election is not only visible on national polls — Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola candidates are seeing it, too.

For a few months now, polls have consistently shown the Liberals gaining support at the expense of the New Democrats, fuelling the party’s resurgence following the resignation of former prime minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump's subsequent trade war and sovereignty threats.

It appears some NDP voters in Kamloops are considering voting for the Liberal Party in the upcoming election. New Democrat candidate Miguel Godau said it's a topic he has run into on the campaign trail.

“That's a conversation that I've heard a lot,” he said.

“I wouldn't say I'm hearing that from every person, but I would say that that's a question that comes up semi regularly."

Castanet Kamloops heard from three participants in a recent streeter who described themselves as NDP supporters who are instead considering voting for the Liberals.

TRU student Emma Ehman told Castanet Kamloops she supports the NDP but doesn’t feel she can vote for them.

“I like the NDP, but I won’t vote for them in the federal election because I feel like I’m throwing my vote away,” she said.

One woman, who said her name was Cathy and that she was from Prince George, told Castanet she would have voted for the NDP three months ago, but felt she needed to vote for a leader who could best stand up to Trump.

“I think it'd be a wasted vote NDP, and I think that Poilievre guy is just too much of a Trump mini-me," she said. "He might say otherwise now to get elected, but he is, and I think Carney understands the economics."

Another woman, who did not give her name, said she was an NDP supporter but was considering Carney and the Liberals.

“And I’m doing that because I think Carney is better than Poilievre,” she said.

Candidates hear buzz

Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola NDP riding association president Rick Turner said he’s heard from a few people asking why the party is not encouraging membership to vote Liberal, and his answer to them has been because historically it's the NDP giving the Tories a run for their money in Kamloops, not the Liberals.

Party member Tom Friedman said he has heard from some but not many local NDP supporters who have said they might vote for the Liberals this election.

“I’d say we've heard from only five or six people — it's very small, small group, and that's just anecdotal," he said.

"We haven't done any extensive interviewing [and] we haven't had time for a lot of door knocking, so we haven't heard beyond anecdotal numbers."

Friedman said losing votes to another party is always a concern, but he thinks most New Democrat supporters will “stick to their values and vote for the party that has given this country so much despite never forming a government.”

Incumbent Conservative Frank Caputo told Castanet he’s heard of NDP supporters possibly shifting to the Liberals while out door knocking. He said he’s also concerned about the potential for undecided conservative voters to pin their vote on the Liberals.

Iain Currie, the Liberal candidate for Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola, said he’s heard from both traditionally NDP and Conservative voters who are considering voting Liberal instead in this election.

“I think the broad tent of the Liberal Party has got a little broader this year,” Currie said.

Currie is part of the trend himself. He recently swapped parties, from Green to Liberal, amid concerns with the current political landscape, telling Castanet Kamloops the threat to Canada from the U.S. was “too great to sit on the sideline and too great to risk on ideological purity.”

Getting the message out

Godau said NDP supporters he's spoken to are considering the Liberals because they’re afraid of the Conservatives getting into power. He said his response has been that voting Liberal may make sense in some ridings where they’ve had previous strong support — but in Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola, it’s the NDP that has been the strongest alternative to the Conservatives.

He said voting for the NDP locally makes the most sense strategically if voters want to see success.

“I'm confident our base will show up,” Godau said.

Friedman also noted that historically, despite the recent boundary reconfiguration, the Kamloops-Thompson-Nicola has historically been a Conservative versus NDP fight.

“A vote for the Liberals is certainly not a way to defeat the Conservative incumbent Mr. Caputo. I know a lot of New Democrats feel strongly that having NDP members in Parliament is really important for putting pressure on the old-time parties to do the right thing,” Friedman said.

Changing tune?

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, appears to no longer be running to be prime minister.

In a recent speech, Singh said no party should have all the power, and that having the NDP in Parliament to hold the government to account, and the CBC is projecting the party will win five seats when Canadians go to the polls on April 28.

In the past seven elections, dating back to 2004, this riding has been won by a Conservative candidate every time.

MP Caputo won Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo with 43 per cent of the vote in the 2021 federal election, with the NDP’s Bill Sundhu coming second with 29 per cent.

In all but two of the last seven federal elections the NDP has placed second to the Conservatives in the riding. Liberals Terry Lake in 2019 and John O’Fee in 2004 were the outliers.

In those last seven elections, however, if the vote from the two left-of-centre parties (NDP and Liberals) had been amalgamated, the Conservatives would have lost the riding four of seven times — six of seven if the Green Party’s share of the vote was included.