David Eby stares down his big political gamble ahead of tight B.C. election

On the eve of B.C.'s snap election, the leader who called it is holding on to hope his political gamble pays off. I will fight every single day for you and your family if you return me to office. This election is close. Every vote is going to matter. Polls show David Eby's NDP slightly behind the B.C. Conservatives, with gains possible for the B.C. Greens under their 26-year-old leader, Emily Lowen. And voter appetite for change is real. When we went into this campaign, 50% of British Columbians said it was time for a change. We're seeing voters ending this campaign largely where they started, which is trying to grapple with what they want to do with a campaign that they were not keen to have. The winds of change were evident in last weekend's municipal elections. New mayors were elected in many cities, including Metro Vancouver's battleground of Surrey. Get out and vote! That's where the two main parties are making their final campaign push. What else can we do in this province to pay for the things that we want? Hospitals and schools and all of those things. Guys, we have to grow our economy. The main issues driving this election aren't new. Cost of living and health care. Big one for me is child care. Affordability for sure. The B.C. Conservatives were thrown into this campaign during a leadership crisis and a mass exodus of M.L.A.s. But the election call effectively united them, many returning to the party under its new leader, a relative unknown. David Eby called an election to try to polarize the electorate against the Conservatives. This political expert says it was a largely negative campaign and some voters may stay home because of it. It's a mobilization point at this, a fight at this point. Neither side is really building their footprint out, so it's a question of who can turn out their vote. But the results won't come right away. Elections BC says ballots will be hand-counted. That's because the snap election meant there wasn't time to deploy vote-counting machines province-wide. And mail-in ballots won't be tallied for another two weeks. Tanya Fletcher, CBC News, Vancouver.