It is voting day in the crucial Nanaimo byelection, which could imperil the Horgan government, but at least one political science professor says it will be the NDP’s to lose today.

University of the Fraser Valley’s Hamish Telford says while Nanaimo is usually pretty safe NDP territory no provincial government can take a byelection for granted.

“A lot of things throwing wrinkles into it,” he said. “We thought the speculation tax might help the Liberals, but now the spending scandal might help the NDP or possibly the Green’s or that might turn people off. It’s uncertain.”

Then there is the vote split.

“What complicates it is the fairly large field that we have,” added Telford. “All the parties are running candidates, including the Conservatives and we just don’t know how the vote splits are going to go.”

He says the NDP have lost the riding just twice in the last 15 general elections.

If the Liberals win, it would create a tie in the legislature which could possibly trigger an election.