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Second in a three-part series; Christy Clark profile published May 2, Andrew Weaver scheduled for May 4.

John Horgan’s first election run came early.

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The wait during the Grade 1 Valentine’s Day vote to select the King and Queen of Hearts was agonizing.

“I remember vividly the roiling stomach, wondering how am I going to do.”

He won. Horgan was so proud of the victory he wore his royal crepe-paper robes home, colours bleeding in the rain. The paper turned to mush. “I waited in that mush until my mother got home to show her.”

Horgan had no such anxiety on election day in 2013, when the NDP, led by Adrian Dix, went into election night leading in every poll that mattered. Newspapers, readying for a landslide, had the pizza ordered and the headlines written in advance: Orange Crush.

“I was in my campaign office, winning by a very comfortable margin. I looked at the television and I think it was CBC said Liberals 50, NDP 33. I turned to a guy and said, ‘Someone’s going to lose their job. They’ve got that backwards,’” said Horgan. The correction never came. The night was a shocker: The B.C. Liberals took 49 seats, their fourth straight majority.