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A total of 20 per cent of respondents and 35 per cent of Liberal voters said de Jong would make the best opposition leader, while 18 per cent of those polled and 30 per cent of Liberal voters said he would also fare the best in the next election against NDP Premier John Horgan.

“If British Columbians could vote, Mike de Jong would win the B.C. Liberal Leadership Race,” said Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research, in his written conclusion. “De Jong performs better on the ballot due to his performance in the Lower Mainland. He outperforms the generic ballot and is the only candidate that was tested who outpolled John Horgan.”

No date has been set for the Liberal leadership vote and, so far, nobody has officially thrown their hat into the ring.

The Mainstreet poll was commissioned by the advocacy group Free Enterprise B.C., whose spokesman Markus Delves, an Abbotsford accountant, served as financial agent on de Jong’s 2017 election campaign.

“Given the poll results we would strongly encourage Mike de Jong to run for leader. B.C. needs a Premier that will be focused on economic growth,” Delves said in a release.

In a statement Friday, de Jong said running for the Liberal leadership is something he is considering.

“I appreciate the number of people who have encouraged me to run as a B.C. Liberal leadership candidate,” he said.

“I am also grateful to my caucus colleagues who have reached out with their supportive advice as the party undertakes this important process of renewal. At this point I am considering whether or not to enter the leadership race and I intend to make that decision in the coming weeks.”

Mainstreet surveyed a random sample of 2,050 British Columbians from Aug. 14-15, The margin of error for survey results is plus or minus 2.16 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.