There are several ridings where the race has the potential to be nail-bitingly close. In some, candidates were elected by a handful of votes in the 2024 election. Others are swing ridings. There are also ridings where notable candidates are facing off. Here is CTV News’ rundown of 10 key battleground ridings: West Vancouver–Sea to Sky The only Green MLA ever elected on B.C.’s mainland is also the only Green Party candidate running for re-election. Jeremy Valeriote won West Vancouver–Sea to Sky in 2024 by 676 votes. He took 38.08 per cent of the total ballots cast in the riding, with B.C. Conservative Yuri Fulmer in a close second with 35.61 per cent. NDP candidate Jen Ford took 26.31 per cent in the three-way race. This time around, there are five names on the ballot. Joining Valeriote are NDP candidate Michelle Livaja, Conservative candidate Ayla Dumais, OneBC candidate Naomi Chocyk and CentreBC candidate Dan Wood. The electoral district and its predecessors have been held by the B.C. Liberals and the Social Credit Party before them. It has never voted NDP. Valeriote’s victory in 2024 followed a close loss for the Greens in 2020 in this riding that includes Whistler, Pemberton and Squamish, as well as the western portion of West Vancouver, including Horseshoe Bay. Valeriote was one of two Greens elected last time around. The other, Rob Botterell, is not seeking re-election in Saanich North and the Islands, where party leader Emily Lowan is running instead. Maple Ridge East Conservative Lawrence Mok, who comes from a background in manufacturing and business management, is looking to defend his position in Maple Ridge East two years after defeating NDP incumbent Bob D’Eith by just 97 votes. Green candidate Kyle Williams took 1,626 votes in 2024, with D’Eith and Mok collecting 11,961 and 12,058 votes, respectively. Prior to boundary and name changes, D’Eith won the Maple Ridge-Mission seat for the New Democrats in 2017 and 2020. The NDP are fielding Hudson Campbell, a trustee for School District 42, against Mok this time. School teacher Daniel Kite represents the B.C. Greens, and the fourth and final candidate is Independent Chris Hatchwell. Surrey City Centre Surrey City Centre was a brand-new riding in 2024, when it became one of the closest races in the province. The NDP’s Amna Shah was leading Conservative candidate Zeeshan Wahla by a razor-thin margin of 96 votes on election night, forcing a judicial recount that confirmed her victory. She took 6,726 votes to Wahla’s 6,494 in the final tally. Wahla, who runs his own engineering consulting firm, is back to challenge Shah, a former Surrey Food Bank director who has served as parliamentary secretary for mental health and addictions under the NDP. Two other parties will be vying for votes on the political right this time, however, with Raman Sharma running for the more moderate CentreBC and Oliver Wildfong representing the more hard-line OneBC. Sharma is founder of the Tradesman Association of B.C. and the annual Construction Expo, while Wildfong is co-owner of a Lower Mainland security firm. Courtenay–Comox Fewer than 100 votes separated Conservative Brennan Day from former NDP MLA Ronna-Rae Leonard in the 2024 election in Courtenay–Comox. Day won by just 93 votes and claimed only 38.83 per cent of ballots cast. Leonard was close behind, and Green candidate Arzeena Hamir received more than 7,200 votes—some 20.74 per cent of the total. This year, Day is seeking re-election against NDP candidate Will Cole-Hamilton, a Courtenay city councillor and chair of the Comox Valley Regional District. Veterinarian Jay Van Oostdam is running for the Greens this year, and CentreBC’s candidate is Jason Cook, a financial services professional. Historically, the riding has mostly been held by the B.C. Liberals this century. That party’s candidate won every election in the district from 2001 until 2017. Leonard held it for the NDP for two terms before Day won the seat for the Conservatives. Surrey South The race in Surrey South is notable as CentreBC Leader Elenore Sturko is hoping to keep her seat in the legislature and is running against a familiar face for voters, the outgoing mayor of White Rock, Megan Knight. Parik Tahlan of the NDP and the Greens’ Bill McConnel are also running. Surrey South is a relatively new riding made up of the former Surrey-Panorama riding and a part of the existing Surrey-Cloverdale riding. B.C. Liberal Stephanie Cadieux held Surrey-Panorama from its creation in 2009 and was re-elected in Surrey South after it was created in 2017 and again in 2020. After Cadieux left the legislature to become Canada’s first Chief Accessibility Officer in 2022, Sturko won the riding in a byelection. In 2024, Sturko ran and won in Surrey-Cloverdale, while controversial B.C. Conservative candidate Brent Chapman—the husband of former leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay—took Surrey South. Chapman initially announced he was going to run with OneBC in this election, but dropped out of the race. Chapman won the 2024 election handily, with a nearly 4,000-vote lead over the NDP candidate. In a historically right-leaning riding, the race between a party leader and current MLA in Sturko and a strong opponent in Knight will be an interesting one to watch. Richmond-Steveston The Richmond-Steveston riding that borders the Strait of Georgia and Fraser River was a stronghold of the right-of-centre B.C. Liberal party for decades until the NDP’s Kelly Green flipped it in 2020. Green won again in 2024 with 10,332 votes, just 484 more than the second-place Conservative challenger. Her profile has since grown as B.C.’s emergency management minister—but Green is not seeking re-election. Could the riding swing right on Saturday? Running in her stead is New Democrat candidate Bruce Kong, owner of a local autobody shop. He faces Gordon Zhang, a former Kwantlen Polytechnic University instructor and entrepreneur who established local N95 respirator production during the pandemic. Representing the more moderate CentreBC party is Barry Wosk, a local businessman and director of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. Running as well are CanWest candidate Keenan Yang and Independent Robert Evans. Kelowna Centre The NDP’s Loyal Wooldridge is challenging Conservative incumbent Kristina Loewen in Kelowna Centre, two years after Loewen defeated Wooldridge by just 40 votes. In 2024, Green candidate Bryce Tippe and Independent Michael Humer took 3,724 votes combined, nearly 15 per cent of the total—though neither is running this year. The third and final candidate is OneBC’s Bill Desrosiers, owner of a local autobody shop that was featured on the reality TV series Bush Wreck Rescue. According to Elections B.C., only 25,750 of 45,642 registered voters cast their ballots in 2024, leaving room for significant change if the parties can energize the electorate. Kelowna Centre was only formed in 2024, combining parts of Kelowna West, Kelowna-Lake Country, and Kelowna-Mission. Each of those was won by the right-of-centre B.C. Liberals in 2020. Vancouver-Langara The Vancouver-Langara riding has historically elected B.C. Liberal candidates, but the riding flipped to the NDP in the previous election. It was a close race, with the NDP’s Sunita Dhir beating the Conservative candidate by 419 votes in 2024. The B.C. Liberals’ Michael Lee’s victory in 2020 was wider, but not a landslide. Prior to 2024, the riding had gone to the Liberals—then B.C.’s most popular right-of-centre party—in every election since its creation in 1989. The Conservatives believe they have a strong candidate in Jamie Stein, the director for Western Canada at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Holocaust education organization. He is up against incumbent Dhir, the parliamentary secretary for international credentials. Also running are John K. Atoyebi for the Greens and Alan Beesley for CentreBC. Surrey–Guildford As political scientist Hamish Telford said this week, all eyes will be on Surrey tonight because “that’s where the swing voters are.” Perhaps no riding is more likely to be affected by swing voters’ choices than Surrey–Guildford. This riding was home to the closest race in the province in 2024, with New Democrat Garry Begg defeating Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa by only 22 votes. This time around, the Conservatives are running Surrey Board of Education vice-chair Garry Thind, a local Realtor. Small business owner Jodi Murphy is also running in Surrey–Guildford for the B.C. Greens. Surrey–Panorama B.C. Conservative incumbent Bryan Tepper is seeking re-election in this riding he won by just 263 votes in 2024. He faces a familiar opponent in NDP candidate and former MLA Jinny Sims, who lost her bid for re-election last time around. Tepper finished with 8,735 votes in 2024, compared with 8,472 for Sims. There was no Green candidate in that race, and only one other name on the ballot—Paramjit Rai from the Freedom Party of B.C. This time around, two other candidates are also vying for the Surrey–Panorama seat: CentreBC’s Manav Manro and the B.C. Green Party’s Nolen Scott. Historically, this riding has changed hands between the NDP and the largest right-of-centre party several times. This year, it looks set to be a key race once again. “The common wisdom is that the election is going to be decided in Surrey—particularly in the central and northern areas of Surrey—because that’s where the swing voters are,” political analyst and University of the Fraser Valley Prof. Hamish Telford told CTV News earlier this week.
