When it comes time to count the ballots after an election, vote totals for different candidates usually fluctuate significantly, depending on which polling stations get their results in first.
That’s likely to be the case in Abbotsford as well. Despite the city’s deserved reputation as a Conservative stronghold, not all parts of the city are equally as friendly to the party.
RELATED: ELECTION HUB: Candidate profiles, voter information and news for Abbotsford’s ridings.
Poll-by-poll results from 2015 show the variation in political views around the city. In the map below, we show which two polling districts were friendliest for each party. Click here for a similar map for the Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding.
(The Abbotsford riding had about 160 polling districts. The Abbotsford riding includes almost all of Abbotsford south of Maclure/Upper Maclure and Bateman roads. Areas north of there are in the Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon. . A chunk of Abbotsford to the south of Highway 1 and west of Mt. Lehman Road is in the Langley-Aldergrove riding.)
We’ve left off mobile polls and others that are unclear about their location. Several of those polls – which often are located near seniors’ residences – brought in some of the Conservatives’ highest vote shares.
We also placed markers for each polling district centrally within the area. Some polling districts are weirdly shaped, but their locations give a general indication of where each party is strongest.
Of note, the Liberals were strongest in 2015 in areas with high numbers of Indo-Canadian voters. The Conservatives did best in rural areas and in places with high numbers of senior voters. And the NDP drew their greatest number of votes in Abbotsford’s urban core. The Green vote was inconsistent.
Some of the findings aren’t surprising: the two best-performing polling districts for the Liberals – to the north and northeast of Highstreet – also saw the Conservatives’ pull in their slimmest share of the vote of any part of Abbotsford. And the best Conservative polling district – on Sumas Prairie – was the second-worst for the NDP, while the second-best district for the CPC was the worst for the Liberals.
But the results also show some interesting battles between parties on the left of the political spectrum. The NDP’s second-best polling district – in the neighbourhood to the northwest of the junction of Marshall/McKenzie roads – also happened to be the second-worst polling district for the Liberals. Meanwhile, the Liberals’ best polling districts saw the NDP struggle to pick up votes.
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