The polls were very wrong in the U.S. election on Nov. 8, but their inaccuracy might look very familiar to many in B.C.

In 2013, Christy Clark pulled a Donald Trump of her own — or perhaps Adrian Dix pulled a Hillary Clinton — when Clark's Liberals defeated Dix's NDP, returning Clark to the premier's office.

At the outset of the 2013 campaign, polls suggested the NDP was as much as 17 points ahead of the Liberals.

In the end, the Liberals would win and actually slightly increase their number of seats in the Legislature.

Squandered chance for NDP

By 2013, the Liberals had been in office for 13 years, which left them with considerable baggage.

There was the B.C. Rail scandal, the carbon tax, the still-developing health care firings scandal and the failure of the HST referendum, which caused then-Premier Gordon Campbell to resign and allowed Clark to take over.

As the campaign was approaching, the government created yet another problem for itself with the "quick wins" scandal.

Pollsters say it would take a major meltdown for the B.C. NDP to lose the 2013 election. 1:17

But even with all those issues working against the Liberals, the NDP couldn't seize victory.

The Liberals unleashed a torrent of attack ads before and during the campaign, while the NDP claimed to take the high road, promising to avoid such tactics — until the very end.

Dix also flip-flopped on the proposed twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline and was said to have difficulty connecting with voters.

Meanwhile, Clark established herself as a strong campaigner who advanced LNG as a pet cause, promising $100 billion in revenue for the province and 100,000 jobs.

Pollsters had few answers

The Liberals won the day. Clark remained premier, Dix resigned as NDP leader and pollsters started looking for answers.

Mario Canseco, then of Angus Reid, said methodology issues could be at play. And Liberal internal polling guru Dimitri Pantazopoulos agreed, saying most online polls reflected too many young voices.

"The sad reality is that young people don't vote," he said afterwards.

The polls were way off in predicting the 2013 B.C. election, and pollsters weren't sure why. 0:52

Canseco says he has a strong record of success since the 2013 election, including correctly calling the 2015 Metro Vancouver Transportation Plebiscite and the 2015 federal election.

And in six months, pollsters will get another chance to forecast a B.C. provincial election.

The next one is May 9, 2017. But this time, according to poll tracker ThreeHundredEight.com, the two parties are neck and neck as of Nov. 11.

Then again, it's hard to know how seriously the public will take those numbers.