In a year-end interview with CBC News, B.C. NDP Leader Adrian Dix says he believes the party's message is getting across to voters.

"We've been much more positive than the government. I haven't made personal attacks against the premier or anyone else," he said.

"Compare that with the Liberal approach, which is attack websites and attack ads ... I think they are out of touch with public opinion. I think the public wants a more positive, serious approach."

Dix has been working steadily to chip away at the image the B.C. Liberal Party has created of him — that of an angry, negative politician who is hostile to business and wasteful with taxpayer dollars.

"This isn't professional wrestling. We don't have to create phoney differences," he said.

"I've been positive where we need to be positive, I've been critical where we need to be critical, and I've proposed alternatives. And I think that's what people want to see."

Dix won the NDP leadership earlier this year after former leader Carole James was forced to resign in the midst of a bitter internal coup that pitted party members against one another.

Connecting with voters

Meanwhile, pollster Mario Canseco of Angus Reid Public Opinion says Dix's message seems to be hitting home with voters.

Canseco tells CBC News a poll released Monday shows Dix now has a higher approval rating than Liberal Premier Christy Clark.

"He has a much bigger name when it comes to specific issues, such as health care, than Clark does," Canseco said.

"In that sense, I think he is really connecting well and there is a lot of people who are looking at the NDP as an option who may have voted for the Liberals the last time."

He said Clark's strategy of reminding voters of the NDP's record in the 1990s no longer seems to work with voters.

"That was a long time ago. There are so many new voters who will be voting in the election just a few months from now who weren't ever here or were voting when the NDP was in power," Canseco said.

"So there's no such thing as basically talking about what the NDP did in the 1990s. I don't think that's a message that is going to resonate this time around."

Canseco said the survey shows 47 per cent of voters surveyed approve of Dix's performance — compared with 40 per cent for Clark's.

The survey of 800 B.C. voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 per cent.

With files from the CBC's Jeff Davies