Although it was a tight race for MP Dan Albas across the newly-drawn Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola (COSN) riding in last October’s federal election, a closer look at the Nicola Valley polls show a wider margin for the Conservative and NDP candidates.

Albas took nearly half of the 919 early-bird voters who crowded the Merritt Civic Centre, while NDP’s Angelique Wood came in second, with 27 per cent.

Logan Lakers, Lower Nicolans, and Princetonians all preferred Albas above the rest, though the second place finisher was Wood in Lower Nicola, and Karley Scott — by only one percentile — in Princeton.

And Quilchena voters strayed the farthest from convention, with over half of the 184 voters casting for the NDP, leaving Conservatives and Liberals fighting for second and third place, respectively.

Those are some of the nuggets of data mined from poll-by-poll results released by Elections Canada last week. This is useful data for strategists from across the political spectrum, as it provides information about where a party’s support is strong or where it might be a close race.

Albas ended up the victor on Oct. 19, winning 39.5 per cent of all votes, while Scott took a close 37.3 per cent.

Looking outside the valley, if Scott had managed to extend a little more support in Kelowna, she could have taken the election. The Liberal candidate was nearly win-for-win with Albas in West Kelowna.

Albas took Peachland by a hair, but lost Summerland overwhelmingly to Scott.

It was the rural voters, many in the Nicola Valley, who were a big part of Albas’ second win.

Overall, the Liberal Party of Canada won the 2015 federal election, taking 184 seats in the House of Commons to form a majority government. The Conservatives took 99 seats to form the opposition party.

Sixty-eight per cent of Canadians voted in the election, the highest voter turnout since 1979. That was even higher here in the COSN, with 71.81 per cent of voters coming out. Numbers were so high that some advanced polling stations — including the one set up at the Merritt Civic Centre — ran out of ballots.