UPDATE: 9:20 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 19

David Williams was determined to win the Salmon Arm-Shuswap riding, worried that if he didn't a lot of people would be let down. 

"So many people come up to you and actually say, 'I鈥檓 praying for you', or 'I鈥檓 really depending on you',  so you really, really don鈥檛 want to let people down," said Williams. "People are actually depending on you to bring about positive change in their lives and I take that to heart."

When the polls closed across the province, it wasn't long before ballot counts put Williams in a healthy lead over his fellow candidates. This pattern continued until Elections BC results showed Williams having the race well in hand with more than 52 per cent of the vote. 

Despite the clear, early lead, Williams' attention election night was on the big TV screens in the Salmon Arm legion where, he, his spouse Denise Fisher and supporters gathered to watch the results roll in. Williams' B.C. Conservative were neck and neck with the BC NDP. 

"The party doing as well as they are, it's overwhelming because you hope for the best and you hope that it ends up that way," said Williams, adding the results so far had exceeded expectations. 

With all advanced ballots and 27 of 28 ballot boxes counted, the vote tally was as follows: 

• David Williams: 15,734 votes, 52.25 per cent;
• Sylvia Lindgren, BC NDP: 9,044 votes, 30.03 per cent;
• Greg McCune, Independent: 2,828, 9.26 per cent;
• Jed Wiebe, BC Green: 2,147, 7.13 per cent;
• Sherry Roy, Independent: 371 votes, 1.19 per cent. 

At her party headquarters, Lindgren said she was surprised, and disappointed, by the results and the direction the riding appeared to have swung. 

鈥淚 would say this time we were surprised," said Lindgren. "We knew that we weren鈥檛 going to win against the BC Liberals, or United Party, but we were surprised that the Shuswap went so far right. Bit of a surprise, and really disappointing this time.

鈥淚 did a little better than last time, but David Williams did better than Greg Kyllo did last time.鈥�

Lindgren was also surprised by how McCune fared. 

鈥淚 actually thought that Greg McCune would do much better than he did," said Lindgren. "I felt fairly sure that the BC United voters would rally behind him here, but it clearly didn鈥檛 happen.鈥�

McCune said via text, "We did our best. Proud of our people." 

Williams shared his respect for his fellow candidates, noting they all ran a clean campaign.

"I hope for them the best," said Williams. "I appreciate anybody who gets into politics for the fact that, like myself, a lot of people don鈥檛 know what they鈥檙e getting into because you鈥檙e dealing with the public, you鈥檙e dealing with a lot of people鈥檚 emotions and you have to respect people who are under scrutiny鈥� everybody usually gets involved for the right reasons so I wish nothing but the best for them and in the future, I hope to work with most of them."

Original Story: 

Early unofficial results for the 2024 B.C. general election show BC Conservative David Williams will be MLA for the Salmon Arm-Shuswap.

As of 8:26 p.m., with 18 of 28 final voting day ballot boxes reported, Williams was ahead of his contenders in the riding with 6,316 votes, totalling 55.59 per cent of votes tallied. In second place was BC NDP candidate Sylvia Lindgren with 2,948 votes or 25.95 per cent of the votes tallied. 

Continue watching the Observer for further election night coverage.