Alberta Provincial Election
The United Conservative and New Democratic Parties Are Statistically Tied Going Into Election Day
Quick Background
Alberta has 87 seats up for grabs this election. At the end of the last election in 2019, the UCP won 63 seats (With 54.9% of the vote) and the NDP won 24 seats (32.7% of the vote).
The last election, arguably, set the stage for this election to play out as a one-on-one fight between the UCP and NDP. Last election saw all minor parties, including the Liberals and Alberta Party, lose their seats in the legislature.
Provincially? Call It A Tie
The start of this election was pretty quiet when it came to polling. It wasn’t until the second week of the election that we started to get a consistent stream of polls for public release and boy, did they ever stay stagnant (Relatively speaking).
The UCP has maintained a provincial lead over the NDP in the majority of polling that’s been released. Despite this the lead has almost always been fairly small, usually a few points at most separated the two parties, and that stayed true up to election day.
As of right now, the UCP sits at 49% in the polling average while the NDP is behind at 45.9%. Smaller parties like the Liberals, Alberta Party and Greens all sit under 3% (The Liberals and ABP both sit with candidate totals in the teens, meaning they don’t have many opportunities to pick up their average share of the vote on election day)
As I wrote at the start of the election, the provincial vote total won’t matter than much in the grand scheme of things. What’s more important is how the parties are doing in Calgary, the battleground of this provincial election.
Calgary, Where Dreams of Government Go To Die
Let’s get right into what the polls are saying for Calgary proper. To make it quick, here’s a bullet-point list of what each pollster is saying in their final polls:
EKOS - UCP +7
Abacus Data - UCP +4
Mainstreet - UCP +4
Research Co. - UCP +3
Janet Brown - UCP +3
Leger - UCP +2
Counsel - NDP +9
So, what’s the takeaway? Well, if the polls are accurate, then it would seem the UCP is set to win the vote in Calgary.
Of course, this vote will be split among the various regions of the city and the UCP won’t win a uniform percentage of the vote among all regions. However, regardless of that, the fact the UCP have a lead in Calgary as they do will likely be enough for them to hold onto enough seats in the city to hold government.
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Undecided Voters and Minor Parties
Undecided voters don’t make up a large chunk of the electorate at this late stage. However, when an election is this close, they can certainly make for some interesting last minute swings at the ballot boxes.
Now, I mention undecided voters here because there’s been a few pollsters, both publicly and privately, who have shown undecideds breaking hard for the NDP in the final days of the election (Usually around 7-in-10 undecided voters lean to the NDP right now). Whether this materializes on election day is yet to be seen.
This also isn’t to mention the smaller parties and their potential vote shares splitting off towards the UCP and NDP on election day. No third-party candidate in your riding like you hoped? Soft minor-party voter that’s more concerned at keeping a party out of power last minute? Small shifts, but in a tight election they can make all the difference.
Ridings To Watch
Now, there’s going to be a lot of ridings to watch on election night, but here’s a few we thought were interesting to highlight!
Calgary-Acaida (Cited as an NDP must win to be on track for government. Currently held by Tyler Shandro (UCP))
Calgary-Bow (Big steppingstone for the NDP in Calgary, NDP candidate is a former high-profile Calgary city councillor)
Calgary-Elbow (Something of a bellwether Calgary riding. No incumbent for this riding. Star candidate for the NDP in Kayande while Cundal for the ABP hopes to regain the seat lost in 2019 for the party. Pawlowski, leader of the Solidary Movement of Alberta, is also running here and may cause issues for the UCP candidate)
Calgary-Falconridge (Closest Calgary loss for the NDP in 2019, lost it by 0.7%)
Edmonton-South West (Closest Edmonton seat and only seat not NDP. The UCP candidate, Madu, is currently a deputy premier and Ip, the NDP candidate, is a former school board trustee)
Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo (Original nomination winner, Mujahid, was disqualified due to legal issues. Yao was re-nominated for the UCP while the riding association supported Mujahid)
Lethbridge-East (Big NDP target, quite close for a non-Calgary/Edmonton seat. UCP candidate, Neudorf, is also a deputy premier. NDP candidate, Miyashiro, is a former Lethbridge city councillor)
Sherwood Park (Closest Outer Edmonton seat)
Taber-Warner (Hinman, the former leader of the Wildrose Independence Party, is running here against UCP candidate, Hunter. Hinman is a former MLA for the area and could easily pull off a good result here. Interesting simply to see how well Hinman does here)
When Can We Expect Results?
Election day is Monday May 29th and polls are open from 9AM MT (11 ET) and close at 8PM MT (10 ET).
As always, I’ll be reporting the results on Twitter so stay tuned!
Good article, but it should be noted that Paul Hinman is now leader of the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition. He was removed as leader of the Wildrose Independence Party last year.