B.C. election 2017: Kamloops a bellwether riding for more than a century

As Kamloops goes, so goes the rest of B.C.

It’s been a rule of thumb in B.C. politics for more than a century. The city in south central British Columbia has voted for the winning party in every provincial election since 1903.

Originally a single riding, Kamloops was split into two ridings — North Thompson and South Thompson — in 1991. While the boundaries of North Thompson and South Thompson have changed over the years, it appears the government always wins at least one of the two ridings.

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In the 2013 election, Liberal Todd Stone won in Kamloops South-Thompson, handily defeating NDP candidate Tom Friedman, 57 per cent to 35 per cent. Now a high-profile cabinet minister, Stone may prove difficult to unseat in this year’s election.

In 2013, BC Liberal Terry Lake won re-election in Kamloops North Thompson, 52 per cent to 39 per cent. Lake is not running this year, and was replaced by current Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar. He will be facing the NDP’s Barb Nederpel and Dan Hines of the Greens.

So why has Kamloops been a bellwether riding for so long?

“There’s not really any kind of research you can do to pin that down, but I suspect it’s because we’re kind of a middle-of-the-road city, being an urban and rural world,” retired politic science professor Ray Pillar said back in 2013. “It’s kind of an average-of-B.C. sitting here in Kamloops. . . People just seem to get the pulse of the province averaged out here.”

— With files from The Canadian Press