Kelowna Centre Down to 43 Votes: Final Count Puts Loewen Ahead, Recount in Range |
Elections BC's final count has Conservative Kristina Loewen ahead of the NDP's Loyal Wooldridge by just 43 votes in Kelowna Centre — 11,689 to 11,646 — a margin within judicial recount range, so the seat is still not settled |
Listen to this story:
The quick read: Elections BC's final count in Kelowna Centre has Conservative Kristina Loewen ahead of the NDP's Loyal Wooldridge by just 43 votes: 11,689 to 11,646, out of 24,272 valid ballots. The lead shrank from 137 votes at the initial count, and the margin falls within judicial recount range, so the seat is still not settled. Meanwhile, the Conservatives' Pavneet Singh won Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream by 3,635 votes, and Macklin McCall won West Kelowna-Peachland by 7,941.
Forty-three votes.
That is all that separates the two leading candidates in Kelowna Centre after Elections BC's final count, and it is close enough that the seat is still not settled.
The final count
As of 4:21 p.m. on Sunday, November 8, the final count stood at Kristina Loewen of the Conservative Party with 11,689 votes (48.16 percent) and Loyal Wooldridge of the BC NDP with 11,646 votes (47.98 percent).
Bill Desrosiers of OneBC finished a distant third with 937 votes.
Out of 24,272 valid ballots, Loewen leads by 43.
That is a margin so thin it falls within judicial recount range, according to the Elections BC figures tracked by BC Ballot.
The lead kept shrinking
When we last reported on this race on November 1, Loewen led by 132 votes heading into the final count.
At the initial count on November 5, her lead was 137.
The final count cut it to 43.
Every ballot counted in the final count moved the race in Wooldridge's direction, and the trend is a reminder of why the final count exists: the first numbers are not the last word.
Loewen held the seat as the Conservative MLA for Kelowna Centre until the Legislative Assembly was dissolved on September 22, 2026.
Whether she keeps it now depends on what a recount, if one is ordered, finds.
The neighbours are settled
Kelowna's other two ridings are decided.
In Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, Conservative Pavneet Singh won by 3,635 votes, with 11,488 votes to 7,853 for the NDP's Binny Boparai.
In West Kelowna-Peachland, Conservative Macklin McCall won by 7,941 votes, taking 15,008 votes to 7,067 for the NDP's George Morgan.
So the valley's delegation is nearly final, with one seat still hanging on a margin of 43 votes out of more than 24,000.
If your vote ever felt like it did not matter, Kelowna Centre is the answer to that.
Forty-three people, one way or the other, decided this race.
Sources: Elections BC final count figures via BC Ballot, checked November 9, 2026; BCPoliTracker, November 8, 2026. |

0 Comments
Join the conversation
Be the first to comment
Share your thoughts above.