After election pummelling, where does the B.C. NDP go from here?

After a devastating defeat, the B.C. NDP will need to regroup, pick an interim leader, marshal its remaining resources and get ready to oppose the winning B.C. Conservatives.

While the NDP haven’t been set back as much as they were in the 2001 election, when they won just two seats, they’re in a much-reduced position with 28 MLAs elected to the Conservatives’ 63 seats.

That’s down from the 47 seats the NDP held while governing, and less than the 30-plus seats they maintained when in Opposition in various governments since 2005.

Aileen Machell, who was NDP Leader David Eby’s deputy chief of staff for three years until early in 2026, said the NDP will now have to reorient themselves to be an effective and constructive official Opposition.

As part of that, they will want to do what they can to protect the legacy pieces of the B.C. NDP over the last nine years, dating to former Premier John Horgan, and under Eby, who was premier for almost four years, said Machell, who now runs her own public-affairs strategy firm and spent 15 years in senior government communication roles.

“Those are the things that will be popular with British Columbians. Things that have made their lives better, things like expanding affordable child care, the housing measures that helped reduce housing prices and bring rents down, but also a lot of the work on health care and attracting family doctors,” noted Machell.

Much of the blame for the NDP’s loss is being placed on Eby’s decision to call a snap election about two years into the party’s four-year mandate.

Initially, Eby said the election was necessary because of threats posed by U.S. tariffs implemented by American President Donald Trump and Trump-style politics of the B.C. Conservatives.

But when chaotic Tory Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay suddenly stepped down and B.C. Interior MLA Lorne Doerkson was chosen as leader that strategy backfired. Eby tried to pivot from his initial reason for calling the election, focusing on issues like affordability and taxing the rich, but that also failed to gain traction.

Veteran NDP MLA and ex-party leader Adrian Dix has said it was “obviously” a mistake to call a snap election. Dix said the discussion about the election call was very negative and it prevented Eby from getting any other message out.

Eby immediately announced on election night that he would be stepping down as leader.

Now, the NDP will need to choose an interim leader and eventually hold a leadership race.

Machell noted that leadership races can help rejuvenate a party because they help sign up members and fundraise, and provide an arena to debate ideas, which can be exciting for the party membership.

She thinks, however, that it won’t be known for sometime what a leadership race will look like.

Some names that have been mentioned as potential new leaders include North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA Bowinn Ma, who has held cabinet posts including as minister of infrastructure, and Ravi Kahlon, who didn’t run again in Delta North, and was previously minister of health.

Hamish Telford, a political scientist, noted the NDP has veterans in the legislature to guide the party through the transition to Opposition.

Those include Dix, but also veterans such as Mike Farnworth, who won his seventh straight election and has served in cabinet, including as minister of public safety and deputy premier.

“There are a lot of younger, bright lights who might be interested in leadership,” observed Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley. “The one silver lining that David Eby has here is he’s left the party in relatively good shape.”

Telford thinks Eby got the timing wrong on the election. If he had called it when Findlay was still leader, for example, at the same time as her byelection was called, a month earlier, then it would be a very different story today, he said. Findlay stepped down just as Eby was about to call the election, but by the time he called the election, Doerkson was already interim leader.

Andrew Reeve, who was a former deputy communications director with the B.C. Liberals, said another thing the NDP will have to do is sift through the political appointments on government staff and determine who might join them on the caucus teams, for those that want to make the move.

“There’s a lot of bitter feelings towards David Eby, but the folks that want to stay and fight, that still want to be involved in this, they’re going to have to start making that decision of who do we let go from caucus and move some of our government folks into that caucus and start building a team that can fight,” said Reeve, who now works as a senior public affairs consultant with Earnscliffe.

The NDP will also need to staff-up for Opposition with a much smaller budget than it would have had, because it’s an allocation based on the number of MLAs that you have, added Reeve.

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