BC election results 2026: the BC Conservatives won a majority government on October 24, and Lorne Doerkson will become British Columbia’s 38th premier. Elections BC’s preliminary count has the Conservatives elected or leading in 64 of 93 ridings, the NDP in 27 and the Greens in 2. Courtenay-Comox went the other way: the NDP’s Will Cole-Hamilton beat Conservative MLA Brennan Day by 696 votes.

BC election results 2026 at a glance

Here is where the province stands in Elections BC’s preliminary count, as of 1:49 a.m. PT on October 25, with 99.57% of results reported. Nothing is official until the final count, which starts November 6.

Party	Seats won or leading	Votes	Share	2024 seats
Conservative	64	861,258	48.1%	44
BC NDP	27	669,901	37.4%	47
BC Green	2	196,593	11.0%	2
CentreBC	0	28,998	1.6%	new party
OneBC	0	26,991	1.5%	new party
All others	0	8,494	0.5%	0

That is a 20-seat swing from 2024, when the NDP won 47 seats to the Conservatives’ 44. CBC News says the Conservatives are on pace for the highest vote share of any party since the B.C. Liberals’ 2001 landslide, and the result gives the party its first majority in nearly a century. The NDP had its worst election night in 25 years: its preliminary total of about 670,000 votes compares with just under 950,000 in 2024, and advance voting was down 11% from 2024.

Who is the new premier of BC?

Five weeks ago Lorne Doerkson was a little-known Interior MLA, on holiday in Africa while his party fought with itself. He became interim Conservative leader on September 20, after Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned, and two days later David Eby called the snap election, two years early. Doerkson, 58, was born in New Westminster, grew up in Surrey and built his career in Williams Lake in newspaper publishing and then financial planning. He was first elected in Cariboo-Chilcotin as a B.C. Liberal in 2020, crossed to the Conservatives in May 2024, and held his seat on Saturday with 76.9% of the vote.

“B.C. is definitely blue,” he told supporters, promising to get the province “back on track” and to “supercharge” it. He is the first premier from a party called the Conservatives since Simon Fraser Tolmie left office in 1933, and he leads the second-largest caucus in B.C. history, according to CBC News.

He is not premier yet. Eby and his cabinet stay in office until Doerkson and a new cabinet are sworn in, and no date had been announced by Sunday morning.

The interim-leader question

There is one unusual wrinkle. The Conservative constitution bars an interim leader from running for the permanent job, and changing that takes a two-thirds vote of members. The party says it will “pursue the appropriate means” under its constitution, bylaws and the Societies Act to keep Doerkson as leader.

What changes in BC politics now

• Eby steps down. David Eby conceded, said he takes full responsibility and resigned as NDP leader. He held his own seat, Vancouver-Point Grey, and the NDP now needs a new leader.
• NDP ministers defeated. Six former cabinet ministers were projected to lose by early Sunday, CBC News reported: Jagrup Brar, Jessie Sunner, Rick Glumac, Jodie Wickens, Anne Kang and Terry Yung. Elections BC’s count also has former education minister Lisa Beare trailing in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows.
• The Greens hold two seats. Leader Emily Lowan won Saanich North and the Islands by 5,017 votes, but the party did not grow.
• The new parties were shut out. CentreBC leader Elenore Sturko took 10% in Surrey South and OneBC interim leader Dallas Brodie took 4% in Vancouver-Quilchena. Neither party won a seat.
• Doerkson’s first priorities. He calls repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) his top priority. He has also promised no tax increases, an end to SOGI guidelines in schools, and a basic personal amount of $32,000 (up from $13,216), about $1,000 a year for most workers. Both he and the NDP pledged new Surrey hospitals and a SkyTrain extension.
• The deficit. The province is projected to run a $14 billion deficit this year. Doerkson promises to cut it, using a 3.2% growth forecast that critics call optimistic.

For the full Conservative platform, see our plain-English breakdown of the BC Conservatives platform, and for how the night unfolded, our BC polls and live seat tracker.

Courtenay-Comox election results 2026

Courtenay-Comox was one of the closest ridings in the province in 2024, and both Doerkson and Eby campaigned there this fall. This time the NDP took it back. Counting is complete in all 95 ballot boxes (5 advance and 90 election-day boxes), but the result is not official until the final count.

Candidate	Party	Votes	Share
Will Cole-Hamilton (winner)	BC NDP	13,390	45.05%
Brennan Day	Conservative	12,694	42.71%
Jay Van Oostdam	BC Green	2,882	9.70%
Jason Cook	CentreBC	740	2.49%
Total valid votes		29,706	99.95%
Rejected ballots		16	0.05%
Total votes considered		29,722	100%

Cole-Hamilton’s margin is 696 votes. Mail-in, telephone and absentee ballots are still to be added on November 6. B.C. orders an automatic judicial recount only when the final margin is under 1/500 of the ballots counted, about 60 votes in this riding on the current count.

Courtenay-Comox: 2024 vs 2026

The NDP’s vote barely moved. Cole-Hamilton has 13,390 votes in the preliminary count, two more than Ronna-Rae Leonard’s 13,388 in the 2024 final count, when Day won by 93 votes. What changed is everything around it. The Green vote fell from 7,202 (20.7%) with Arzeena Hamir on the ballot in 2024 to 2,882 (9.7%), and Day’s total slipped from 13,481 to 12,694. In 2024, 50,583 people were registered to vote here. Keep in mind that the 2026 mail-in ballots are not counted yet, so every 2026 number will still go up a little.

Who is Will Cole-Hamilton, Courtenay-Comox’s new MLA?

Will Cole-Hamilton is a two-term Courtenay city councillor who has chaired the Comox Valley Regional District board since 2023, and a former director of the Downtown Courtenay Business Association. He says the issues he hears about most are affordability and health care. He has promised to push for stronger maternity, paediatric and seniors’ care, more affordable living, good jobs and a more climate-resilient community.

“B.C. is still working to address the infrastructure deficit left by the former conservative government,” he said in a campaign statement. “We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past by neglecting the investments our communities need.” Now he will make that case from the opposition benches, across from a Conservative majority.

Brennan Day, first elected in 2024, was the Conservatives’ critic for rural health and seniors’ health, and says he spent much of his term raising the alarm about pressures on Comox Valley Hospital. He left the Conservative caucus on August 26, sat as an Independent and rejoined the party on September 22, the day the legislature was dissolved.

What changes for Courtenay and the Comox Valley

The riding voted NDP, but the government will be Conservative. Here is what that means locally. These are campaign promises, not law yet.

• Health care: both main parties promised an urgent and primary care centre (UPCC) for the Comox Valley, so the incoming government’s platform includes one. The Conservatives also committed to fund the long-awaited cardiac catheterization lab in Nanaimo, which would serve central and north Island patients, and a $50 million fund to end temporary emergency room closures.
• Taxes: the basic personal amount would rise to $32,000, worth about $1,000 a year for most workers, and the PST would come off beer, wine and spirits. Local businesses would get three years without PST on machinery, equipment and software.
• An MLA in opposition, again: for the second election in a row, Courtenay-Comox chose an MLA from outside the governing party. Day sat across from an NDP government; Cole-Hamilton will sit across from a Conservative one.
• Schools: the Conservative platform brings back letter grades and provincial exams, repeals the SOGI resources and restores shop class. That applies to Comox Valley schools like every other district.
• First Nations relations: Doerkson’s top priority is repealing DRIPA, the 2019 law that commits B.C. to bring its laws in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Comox Valley is home to the K’ómoks First Nation.
• Housing and safety: the Conservatives would end provincial housing targets for municipalities, and add 500 RCMP officers and 150 civilian staff across B.C. over five years. Before the vote, Comox Valley readers told The Discourse their top concerns were housing, health care and protecting drinking water.

Next door: Mid Island-Pacific Rim and North Island

Cumberland, Royston, Union Bay, Fanny Bay, Denman and Hornby vote in Mid Island-Pacific Rim, where the NDP’s Josie Osborne won by 1,615 votes over Conservative Joshua Dahling. To the north, Conservative Anna Kindy leads North Island by 1,311 votes, with a few ballot boxes still to report at the last update.

Vancouver Island election results

Across the Island the NDP won or leads in 9 of 15 ridings, the Conservatives in 5 and the Greens in 1. The Conservatives took four seats the NDP won in 2024: Saanich South, Cowichan Valley, Ladysmith-Oceanside and Juan de Fuca-Malahat. Courtenay-Comox was the NDP’s only Island gain. Two races are within 200 votes, Ladysmith-Oceanside (89) and Cowichan Valley (150), so watch them in the final count.

Riding	Won or leading	Party	Margin
North Island *	Anna Kindy	Conservative	1,311
Courtenay-Comox	Will Cole-Hamilton	BC NDP	696
Mid Island-Pacific Rim	Josie Osborne	BC NDP	1,615
Ladysmith-Oceanside	Kris McNichol	Conservative	89
Nanaimo-Lantzville	George Anderson	BC NDP	866
Nanaimo-Gabriola Island *	Sheila Malcolmson	BC NDP	2,817
Cowichan Valley	Bert Chen	Conservative	150
Juan de Fuca-Malahat	Mike Hicks	Conservative	768
Langford-Highlands *	Ravi Parmar	BC NDP	1,149
Esquimalt-Colwood	Darlene Rotchford	BC NDP	3,564
Saanich South	Cathie Ounsted	Conservative	1,227
Saanich North and the Islands	Emily Lowan	BC Green	5,017
Oak Bay-Gordon Head	Diana Gibson	BC NDP	1,601
Victoria-Beacon Hill	Grace Lore	BC NDP	1,218
Victoria-Swan Lake	Nina Krieger	BC NDP	1,780

What it means for BC power, crypto mining and data centres

Energy is where a Conservative government could move fastest. Its platform promises to triple LNG production by 2035 and finish the North Coast Transmission Line, and all of that runs through BC Hydro. What is not clear yet is whether the new government will revisit the NDP’s permanent ban on new crypto-mining power connections. For the numbers behind that debate, see BC Hydro electricity rates for crypto mining and the permanent ban, why crypto mining in British Columbia still has a hydro advantage, a real Bitcoin mining operation in the Comox Valley, and Canada’s AI data center boom.

When will the BC election results be official?

Elections BC’s final count starts November 6. That is when vote-by-mail, assisted telephone and absentee ballots are added; Elections BC counts them about two weeks after election day, after extra checks that each voter voted only once. Close ridings can still change hands then, and any riding where the final margin is under 1/500 of the ballots goes to an automatic judicial recount.

BC election results FAQ

Who won the 2026 BC election?

The BC Conservatives, led by interim leader Lorne Doerkson, won a majority government. Elections BC’s preliminary count has them elected or leading in 64 of 93 ridings, with the NDP at 27 and the Greens at 2.

Who is the new premier of BC?

Lorne Doerkson, the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin, will become B.C.’s 38th premier when he is sworn in. David Eby, who resigned as NDP leader on election night, stays premier until then.

Who won Courtenay-Comox in 2026?

Will Cole-Hamilton of the BC NDP won with 13,390 votes (45.05%) to 12,694 (42.71%) for Conservative incumbent Brennan Day, a 696-vote margin in the preliminary count.

How many votes were cast in Courtenay-Comox?

29,722 ballots were counted in the preliminary count: 29,706 valid votes and 16 rejected ballots. Mail-in, telephone and absentee ballots are added in the final count starting November 6.

When are the BC election results official?

Elections BC’s final count begins November 6, 2026. Results become official after the final count and any judicial recounts.

How many seats are needed for a majority in BC?

47 of the 93 seats in the legislature.

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Sources: Elections BC preliminary results (as of 1:49 a.m. PT on October 25, 2026) and 2024 Statement of Votes; CBC News (Justin McElroy, Lauren Vanderdeen, Maryse Zeidler); The Canadian Press via CHEK News; Daily Hive; Times Colonist; The Discourse; bcballot.ca. Not affiliated with Elections BC or any party.

Images: six original graphics by Kevin Katovic. © 2026 Kevin Katovic, all rights reserved. To license an image, email support@kevinkatovic.com.