De Jong is best choice for Liberal leader, poll suggests

A new survey conducted by Mainstreet Research suggests Abbotsford West MLA and former finance minister Mike de Jong is the top candidate to replace Christy Clark as B.C. Liberal leader.

Mainstreet tested the names of five potential leadership candidates — de Jong, Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Todd Stone, Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Andrew Wilkinson, Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier and Vancouver-Langara MLA Michael Lee — and asked British Columbians who they would support in the Liberal leadership race.

However, the poll did not include Dianne Watts, the Surrey Conservative MP and former Surrey mayor, who has been touted as a potential candidate.

Sixteen per cent of British Columbians polled said they would support de Jong in the Liberal leadership race, compared with seven per cent for Stone, five per cent for Wilkinson and four per cent for Lee and Bernier. A full 50 per cent of respondents said they were not sure about their preference, while 14 per cent supported someone else.

Among B.C. Liberal voters, 28 per cent said they would support de Jong, with Stone receiving eight per cent, Wilkinson seven per cent, Bernier four per cent and Lee two per cent. Still a large portion, 42 per cent, of Liberal voters are unsure who they would support, while eight per cent said they’d cast their ballot for someone else.

A total of 20 per cent of respondents and 35 per cent of Liberal voters said de Jong would make the best opposition leader, while 18 per cent of those polled and 30 per cent of Liberal voters said he would also fare the best in the next election against NDP Premier John Horgan.

“If British Columbians could vote, Mike de Jong would win the B.C. Liberal leadership race,” Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research, wrote in his conclusion. “De Jong performs better on the ballot due to his performance in the Lower Mainland. He outperforms the generic ballot and is the only candidate that was tested who outpolled John Horgan.”

No date has been set for the Liberal leadership vote and, so far, nobody has officially thrown their hat into the ring.

The Mainstreet poll was commissioned by the advocacy group Free Enterprise B.C., whose spokesman Markus Delves, an Abbotsford accountant, served as financial agent on de Jong’s 2017 election campaign.

“Given the poll results, we would strongly encourage Mike de Jong to run for leader. B.C. needs a premier that will be focused on economic growth,” Delves said in a release.

Mainstreet surveyed a random sample of 2,050 British Columbians on Aug. 14 and 15. The margin of error for survey results is plus or minus 2.16 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.