B.C. Election 2026: Will Burnaby remain an NDP stronghold?

It's election day across B.C. and voters in Burnaby are headed to the polls. Photo by Francis Georgian /PNG

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It’s election day across B.C. and voters in Burnaby are headed to the polls.

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On this page, you’ll see updates for the following Burnaby ridings:

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• Burnaby North
• Burnaby East
• Burnaby Centre
• Burnaby South-Metrotown
• Burnaby-New Westminster

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For everything you need to know about how and when to vote in the provincial election, click HERE.

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If you’re still undecided on who to vote for, check out our voters’ guide and read up on the major issues and priorities within B.C.

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Then follow along our live-blog HERE throughout the day and night for the latest election day news across the Metro Vancouver region, and check back here where we’ll keep this post updated all night with election results and reaction from ridings in Burnaby.

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The NDP swept all five Burnaby ridings two years ago, but three of them could have gone either way if 2,775 NDP votes had gone instead to the Conservative runners-up.

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The NDP won all five races in 2024 in its Burnaby stronghold with between 49 and 60 per cent of the votes, and the Conservatives came in second in all five, with between 35 and 43 per cent of the total votes.

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None of the races were nail-biters, but Burnaby South-Metrotown, Burnaby North and Burnaby East weren’t far off from having a reversed outcome.

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The Burnaby South-Metrotown seat, for instance, would have flipped if 594 voters who had cast ballots for the NDP’s Paul Choi had instead voted for the second-place finisher, Conservative Han Lee.

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It was the 30th closest race of the 93 riding battles across the province in 2024.

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Burnaby North, the 38th closest contest provincewide, had a margin of victory of 2,066 votes, meaning if half of those voters plus one — or 1,034 voters — had backed Conservative Michael Wu instead of the NDP’s Janet Routledge, that seat, too, would have flipped.

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Similarly for Burnaby East, the 40th tightest race, 1,147 votes were needed to flip the win to Conservative runner-up, Simon Chandler, over the NDP’s winner Rohini Arora.

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The other two ridings — Burnaby Centre and Burnaby-New Westminster, respectively the 52nd and 74th closest 2024 results — were further out of reach, with almost two-thirds of all voters backing the NDP in each of them.

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Conservative candidate Dharam Kajal would have needed another 1,244 votes, from NDP winner Anne Kang to win in a two-candidate race in Burnaby Centre.

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And in Burnaby-New Westminster, longtime NDP Raj Chouhan beat Conservative Deepak Suri by a sizable 4,500 votes. Suri would have needed more than 2,200 votes from him to win.

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In all in 2024, the second-place candidates would have needed more than 6,200 votes from the first-place candidates to close the margin of victory and swing all five ridings, or about 3.5 per cent of all registered voters.

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In this snap election, there are more candidates on the ballot than in 2024, which may dilute the concentration of votes for the two leading contenders.