In a shocking turn of events, incumbent Bob Zimmer defied all expectations, re-capturing the riding of Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies by the narrowest of margins, capturing 28,338 votes—or 60.8 percent of the eligible votes, narrowly managing to defeat his nearest rival—NDP candidate Cory Longley—by a mere 20,040 votes.
In third place, with 4,917 votes was People’s Party Candidate Ryan Dyck, with 4,917 votes.
Rounding out the Ballot was Amir Alavi of the Liberal Party with 4,002 votes, Green Candidate Catharine Kendall with 1559 votes, the Maverick’s David Jeffers with 1,466 and Phil Hewkin of Canada’s Fourth Front with 52.
Pundits are waiting for one more station to report in, and the candidates are anxiously waiting to see if the results of that station skew the results.
So far, only 46,632 of the 79,952 registered voters have voted, so there is a chance that all 33,320 remaining voters will have voted at that one polling station. And if all those voters voted for the same candidate, any of the candidates could win this riding. Also, they are still waiting on the count for the mail-in ballots.
As it stands right now, 58.32 percent of eligible voters in the riding have cast their vote, which is slightly below the national average of 58.44 percent.
As always, these numbers are preliminary.
Across the country, the Liberals took 158 of the seats to maintain their minority government. The Conservatives have won 119 seats, the Bloc Quebecois 34, the NDP 25 and the Greens won the last two.
The results will lead to more calls for election reform, as the Conservatives took 34 percent of the popular vote, more than the Liberal’s 32.2, yet won fewer seats.
And the NDP received 17.7 percent of the popular vote, yet only won seven percent of the seats in the house.
The People’s Party took about 5.1 percent of the vote, yet got no seats in the house. Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois took 7.8 percent of the popular vote and got 34 seats.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
