- Incumbent: Jennifer Whiteside (New Democratic | 2020)
- Candidates:
- NDP: Jennifer Whiteside
- Conservative: Ndellie Massey
- Green: Maureen Curran
- 2020 Results:
- NDP – 61%
- Green – 18%
- Liberal – 16%
- Description:
- An NDP safe seat in the vein of Vancouver-Hastings, New West-Coquitlam is a diverse working-class riding with a hipsterish flair to it. Incumbent MLA Jennifer Whiteside is running again, and in a seat like this, the only question is who comes second.
- What may give the Conservatives the edge in taking silver is the redrawing of the riding. New Westminster has been amended to take in a sliver of southwest Coquitlam around the border with Burnaby, which tends to be more of a two-horse race between the NDP and the BC Liberals. The BC Liberals also placed respectable seconds in some polls along Quayside Drive in southwest New West in 2017.
- For Green strength, look to the centre of New West. Some polls around the Farmers’ Market and Sullivan Park have gone Green before, and they also tend to be the parts of the riding with more white people.
- While New Westminster-Coquitlam has been targeted in the past as a potential NDP breakthrough on the Lower Mainland, the circumstances of this election are drastically different from 2017. The Greens have moved left, both politically and literally, and their new base is likely to be concentrated around the Capital Regional District on the Island. The only thing to watch for is whether Massey or Curran come second, and if the NDP goes under 50%.
Hugh Chan is a second year student at UBC studying International Relations and Data Science. You can find more coverage of the 2024 BC election as well as politics across East Asia and the Anglosphere at https://x.com/shxnhugh.
