B.C. New Democrats smell blood in the water in several Liberal-held ridings in Metro Vancouver, and leader John Horgan has spent the bulk of his time during the first half of the election campaign working hard in the Lower Mainland’s key battleground ridings.

Those efforts culminated Sunday afternoon with a raucous, jam-packed, thundering rally in Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom, the site of so many legendary concerts over the years.

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“B.C. Liberals and Christy Clark promise you everything before an election and then they deliver nothing,” Horgan told a crowd the NDP estimated to be 1,000. “They get ahead and you get left behind. But the bad choices that they make can be stopped. You can stop it. We can say enough is enough.

“I have a simple message for Christy Clark: After 16 years of neglecting people no one believes you care now. This is not as good as it gets. We can do so much better than this.”

Horgan hit on the major planks of his platform, including housing affordability, health care and education. He encouraged volunteers to get out and rally their neighbours with 16 days left before the election. He also touched upon Liberal scandals, and elicited a chorus of boos and chants of “shame” from the crowd when he mentioned B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark.

“I just cannot wait to be your premier and the premier for the rest of British Columbia that’s been ignored for the past 16 years,” said Horgan.

Solid speech. Energetic rally. Not quite as good as that time in 1974 when Ted Nugent shot a flaming arrow from the Commodore stage into a target above the bar, just about burning the place down in the process. But all in all, pretty darn good for the NDP.

Yet despite all that, here’s a scenario that could easily play out May 9: The NDP thump the Liberals hard in the Lower Mainland. And still lose the election.

To understand why that’s a possibility, let’s start with the math behind the ridings the NDP needs to win government. The magic number is 10 new seats, to increase the party’s share from 35 at the dissolution of the legislature to the 45 required to form a solid majority government.

More than half of B.C.’s 87 ridings are in the Lower Mainland, if you go as far as Chilliwack. So it’s smart campaigning for the NDP to focus there. The leader’s tour can hit three or four ridings a day and pick up substantial media coverage.

But many of the Metro ridings are basically locked in for each party. In a normal election, there’s maybe a dozen good races, where advantages shift due to boundary adjustments, party momentum and local issues.

The parties likely have these seats at the top of their list of targets: Vancouver-Fraserview, where Liberal cabinet minister Suzanne Anton’s in trouble; Burnaby North, where Kinder Morgan could dislodge Liberal Richard T. Lee; the two Maple Ridge ridings, where low-profile Liberal incumbents are threatened; two Surrey ridings, where cabinet ministers Peter Fassbender (Fleetwood) and Amrik Virk (Guildford) are fighting for their lives; and Delta North, where Liberal Scott Hamilton is at risk of being overrun by NDP Olympian Ravi Kahlon.

Let’s say the NDP runs the table on these seven seats. Add or subtract a few more if you want — perhaps Port Moody-Coquitlam, North Vancouver-Lonsdale and Vancouver-False Creek. Even take it as high as 12. Considerable damage to the Liberals.

Yet, the NDP have to hold all their other ridings for this Metro victory scenario to work. And that’s where things gets bumpy.

The Liberals have their eyes on picking up as many as four Metro ridings: Delta South, where independent incumbent Vicki Huntington has retired in a seat that has a strong Liberal history; Burnaby-Lougheed, where former Global TV host Steve Darling’s star power could carry the day; Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, which the NDP’s Jodie Wickens won in a by-election last year but has historically been Liberal; and Coquitlam-Maillardville, the closest race in the province in 2013 which the NDP’s Selina Robinson won by only 41 votes.

Then there’s outside Metro.

Skeena is a riding the Liberals hope to take from the NDP, with high-profile former Haisla Nation chief Ellis Ross running in a seat vacant after the NDP’s Robin Austin retired. Saanich North and the Islands was barely won by the NDP in 2013 and with a strong B.C. Green presence that riding is a complete toss-up for all parties. Cowichan Valley, once an NDP stronghold, has dissolved amid infighting and a strong Green candidate. The Libs are pushing hard on North Island and in Esquimalt, ridings held by the NDP.

If the NDP lose some or all of the above seats, start subtracting those numbers from the party’s Metro gains and it quickly becomes a wash.

The NDP hope to push back — they believe former MLA Harry Lali could win back Fraser-Nicola, and the party could perhaps make some inroads in Penticton and Boundary-Similkameen. But much of the rest of the interior and northern B.C. looks like potentially long odds in 2017 for New Democrats. So long in fact that Horgan has yet to campaign there, as Liberal Leader Christy Clark gleefully pointed out at a rally in Prince George on Friday.

Horgan was in Kamloops and Osoyoos before the writ dropped, and in Penticton earlier in the campaign. Expect him to hit the interior and north after the TV leader’s debate Wednesday. His rally Sunday at the Commodore fired up his Metro troops for the rest of the week.

Of course, there’s lots of unknowns and many other potential ways the race could play out differently before May 9.

But within both war rooms, there’s an acknowledgment that an NDP victory most likely won’t come from delivering a shellacking to the Liberals in Metro Vancouver alone. It has to be backstopped by victories elsewhere in the province. Or else the Liberals could lose the fight in the Lower Mainland, but retain the balance of power in Victoria.