Delta South

	Colero, Larry
	Paton, Ian
	Reid, Bruce
	Sherley, Errol Edmund
	Wong, Nicholas
Incumbent:
	Delta South Vicki Huntington

Reference:

Population (2014):			47577
Deviation from average:			-10.40%
Geographical Area:			464 sq km
2013 Election Result
	Delta South
		Vicki Huntington*
		11376	47.80%
		Bruce McDonald
		8721	36.65%
		Nic Slater
		3700	15.55%
Previous Prediction - 2013 Provincial Election Previous Prediction - 2009 Provincial Election

	08/05/2017	Miles Lunn 174.7.110.151
Prior to 2005, this was a solid BC Liberal riding and with Vicky Huntingdon not running again, they should easily retake this. Even she stated she expected it to revert to the BC Liberals. Not all of her votes will go over to the BC Liberals, some will go NDP, some Green, but the BC Liberals have a much higher starting point that even if only a 1/3 went to them, they would still re-take this. Along with Coquitlam-Burke Mountain these are the two ridings I am quite confident they will pick-up. Burnaby-Lougheed, Coquitlam-Maillardville, Skeena, and Columbia River-Revelstoke are possibilities but still too close to call.
	30/03/2017	T.C. 64.180.240.11
The riding of Delta South, encompassing both Tsawwassen and Ladner, has always had somewhat small c conservative demographics. Riding results from 1991 election had a combined Liberal & Social Credit support of 70% popular vote share. 1996 election had a combined Liberal & Reform popular vote share of 65%. 2001 election saw 67% for the Liberals with Greens in 2nd place. Prior to 2005 election, the Delta Hospital issue in Ladner had become a hot button issue with cutbacks. In the 2005 election, long time Delta councillor Vicki Huntington ran as an independent against the then Liberal incumbent. BTW, Vicki Huntington has always been a greenish, centrist red Tory on political spectrum. Vicki's father, Ron Huntington, was a federal PC MP for a West Vancouver federal riding from 1970's into 1980's. Vicki came close to knocking off Liberal incumbent losing by a 37.5% to 33% margin. After 2005, other high profile issues came to the fore such as the replacement of BC Hydro's transmission towers to Van Isle. In 2009, Vicki narrowly defeated Liberal incumbent by a 42.6% to 42.5% margin. A long time historic first for BC after many decades. In 2013, Vicki increased her margin winning by 47.8% to 36.7% for her Liberal challenger. Vicki has always been a centre-right red Tory - always voting with the incumbent Liberal gov't on money bills - read that as annual BC budgets. Vicki was slam dunk for re-election in 2017 until her surprising decision not to seek re-election. Then it became quite clear that the Liberals would regain this seat in 2017. Some further data on underlying demographics is federal voting patterns in 2011 - federal Cons won all polling stations in the provincial boundaries of Delta South. In 2015 federal election many previous 2011 federal Con voters shifted over to the federal Liberals akin to similar shifts across BC. All federal polling stations had federal NDP in 3rd place except for one. Further corroborates the centre-right demographics of Delta South. I have deep roots in this riding and the demographics are akin to centre-right White Rock/South Surrey tidings. Moreover, the candidate for the Liberals is Delta councillor Ian Payton - he topped all municipal polling stations in both Tsawwassen and Ladner in November, 2014 municipal election. Now a safe Liberal seat in 2017. PS. I honestly cannot understand how Delta South has turned into a toss-up seat when neighbouring riding of Delta North, which was held by NDP in 2005 and 2009 and then won by Liberals by narrow 1% margin in 2013 has been declared Liberal. Both predictions should be reversed IMHO.
	17 03 10	South Islander 184.71.12.34
This has always been a solidly centre-right district. But a number of decisions made by the BCL government in their first and second terms (hospital downgrade, perimeter road etc.) upset locals. Huntington, a popular centre-right councilor, ran as an independent in 2005 on these local issues and nearly took the district. She narrowly took it in 2009 when former AG Wally Oppal switched from Fraserview to this district (he had moved here, but the optics were bad). She easily held it in 2013 when the BCL were busy fending off the NDP. Now that she isn't running, it should return to the BCLs, who performed substantially better here than they did province-wide prior to 2005.
	17 01 11	Pundit79 50.64.158.173
Look for this riding to return to the BC Liberals now that independent incumbent Vicki Huntington announced that she isn't seeking re-election.