Alberta United Conservative Party Leadership Election, 2017

[Njall]

With Saturday's ratification of the unity agreement by members of Alberta's PC and Wildrose parties, a leadership race will now be starting. The leadership election is scheduled for October 28, 2017, and from what I have seen party members will be voting by preferential ballot.

The soon-to-be (once recognized by Elections Alberta) UCP caucus will be meeting tomorrow afternoon to choose an Interim Leader, who will be barred from contesting the leadership election. Three names have been thrown around as potential Interim Leaders:

• Nathan Cooper (Wildrose MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills)
• Prasad Panda (Wildrose MLA for Calgary-Foothills)
• Richard Gotfried (PC MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek)

Further details of the election will be determined by the UCP Leadership Election Committee, which will be comprised of 12 UCP members, of whom 6 each will be appointed by Brian Jean and Jason Kenney from their respective parties.

So far, there are four candidates who have been widely-discussed as running:

• Jason Kenney: Current leader of the PC Party, and former Harper Conservative Cabinet Minister and MP for Calgary Midnapore
• Brian Jean: Current leader of the Wildrose Party and MLA for Fort McMurray-Conklin. Former federal Conservative MP for Fort McMurray--Athabasca
• Derek Fildebrandt: Wildrose finance critic and MLA for Strathmore-Brooks. Former Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. Has recently been exploring a leadership bid on a "liberty conservatism" platform. Regardless of whether he ends up running, he has said he will not be supporting Brian Jean, his current party leader. Has released some policies on his website: http://www.derekfildebrandt.ca
• Doug Schweitzer: A lawyer from Calgary. Has been active in conservative party circles for a while, serving (amongst other things) as an organizer on Jim Prentice's PC leadership campaign. I believe he also used to be Executive Director of the Manitoba PC Party. Campaign website is here: http://www.dougschweitzer.com/landing-page?splash=1.
  

[Njall]

As an update to the race, Schweitzer, Jean, and Kenney are all officially in the race.

Jean has so far received the endorsements of seven UCP MLAs (all previously Wildrose MLAs):

• Leela Aheer (Chestermere-Rocky View)
• Todd Loewen (Grande Prairie-Smoky)
• Don MacIntyre (Innisfail-Sylvan Lake)
• Angela Pitt (Airdrie)
• Ron Orr (Lacombe-Ponoka)
• Glenn van Dijken (Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock)
• Tany Yao (Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo)

Jean is also being supported by Blaine Calkins, MP for Red Deer--Lacombe.

Meanwhile, Kenney has received the endorsements of the following Conservative MPs:

• Michael Cooper (St. Albert--Edmonton)
• Jim Eglinski (Yellowhead)
• Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park--Fort Saskatchewan)
• Matt Jeneroux (Edmonton Riverbend)
• Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard)
• Ron Liepert (Calgary Signal Hill)
• Arnold Viersen (Peace River--Westlock)

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Mainstreet has released a poll testing how the UCP would fare in an election under each leadership candidate

Topline Results:
Jean: 59%-28%-9%-4%
Kenney: 56%-30%-9%-5%
Fildebrandt: 54%-30%-11%-5%
Schweitzer: 52%-31%-12%-6%

Including Undecideds:
Jean: 48%-21%-6%-3%-21%
Kenney: 41%-22%-6%-3%-28%
Fildebrandt: 43%-24%-8%-4%-21%
Schweitzer: 41%-23%-8%-4%-24%

[Njall]

Kenney's been touring around southern Alberta for the last day-and-a-half, picking up a few more endorsements from elected officials. Specifically, three UCP (all formerly WRP) MLAs are now backing Kenney: Grant Hunter (Cardston-Taber-Warner), Drew Barnes (Cypress-Medicine Hat), and Rick Strankman (Drumheller-Stettler).

Of note, Barnes was the second-place finisher behind Jean during the 2015 WRP leadership. As well, Barnes and Strankman are two of the three remaining MLAs who were part of the WRP's 2012 caucus.

[Njall]

Fildebrandt out, reiterates his anti-Jean stance. Will he endorse Kenney, Njall?

I would be incredibly surprised if he didn't end up backing Kenney. It's widely-known in political circles here that he backs Kenney personally, but even aside from that, he'll obviously never back Jean, and the style and substance of Kenney's politics is much closer to Fildebrandt's than Schweitzer's is. So even by simple process of elimination, Kenney would be the logical choice for him to back.

Why is he strongly against Jean?

While I don't know the whole story there, the two of them seem to have a fairly long-running personal animosity that occasionally spills over into the public sphere. There was that incident, for example, when Jean briefly suspended Fildbrandt from caucus and from his finance critic role when he responded "proud to have constituents like you" to an online comment from a supporter who referred to Kathleen Wynne as "Mr. Wynne."

[Njall]

Fildebrandt was in at least one of my classes in university, and I can confirm the man is a nutcase. He had a big reputation as being the most right wing person on campus. No wonder he moved to the most right wing part of Alberta to start his political career. (Actually, this practice is quite common for young conservatives to move to Alberta to get in to politics; there are many examples of this).

With the above in mind, I think Hatman will smile while he reads this story.

Fildebrandt is blaming Jean for leaking this. He's already doing damage control by offering to donate the money back, but considering this guy's old job with the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, this looks terrible.

[Njall]

Forgot to post yesterday, but former WRP President Jeff Callaway is running for UCP Leader.

[Njall]

Whither the Alberta Liberals, then?  (Might they strike a "marriage of convenience" with the Alberta Party?)

I think they will.  I think you will see a unite the centre between the Alberta Liberals and Alberta Party and likewise they will include many Red Tories from the former Alberta PCs which are not comfortable with the merged party.  Doubt they will go that far in 2019, but I think in 2023 they have a much better chance for a breakthrough.

I disagree. I think it's more likely the Liberals will disappear into irrelevancy (if they have not done so already) like they did in Saskatchewan.

I think that some Liberals will gravitate to the Alberta Party if the ABP becomes recognized as the consensus centrist option, but in terms of the Liberal Party as an institution, I agree with Hatman. David Khan has been unwilling (so far, at least) to talk cooperation with the ABP, and seems content to contest the next election on his party's own merits. In all likelihood, David Swann (their only remaining MLA) will retire at the next election and the ALP will be unable to keep his seat, furthering their descent into irrelevance.

What's the level the NDP would have to get to in order to maintain a plurality/majority of seats?

There are a number of complicating factors that make this sort of question really tough to answer right now. For instance, the question of how much support third-party options like the Alberta Party will have, and the effects of the electoral boundary redistribution.

For the time being, I would say that they would need to at least hold on to their 2015 level of support to maintain a majority, and if non-UCP opposition parties prove to be non-factors, they would likely need to gain support beyond 2015 levels. Even if non-UCP opposition parties pick up a noticeable following, I would say the NDP would need at least 35% for a plurality of seats, which based on current polling would be hard to achieve, but would theoretically be in reach.

[Njall]

Doug Schweitzer has condemned the Rebel media and stated Conservatives should have nothing to do with them as they are supportive of neo-nazis after Faith Goldy reporting on the Charlottesville march and showing support for the alt right.  Will be interesting what impact that has.  No doubt the more right wing elements won't like him attacking the Rebel media, but it could help amongst moderates.  Also depending on how other polls show between now and the leadership will be interesting if you get a large number of progressive signing up to vote in the leadership race like they did for Alison Redford.  Back then it was a foregone conclusion the PCs would win so many unions and progressives signed up to support whomever they thought was the least bad.  At the moment most of that group is happy with the NDP, but if it looks like a UCP win is inevitable (I don't think most on the left feel it is) could we see more of them signing up?

I personally don't think you'll see a lot of (or any) progressives joining the UCP to vote for him. You've definitely touched on the first reason that I think that, namely that there's actually an NDP government in place and many or all on the progressive side would prefer to work to save their actual progressive government. Another notable difference between this leadership election and the 2011 PC leadership is that, at least from what I recall, Alison Redford was presenting herself as a relative fiscal moderate in addition to being fairly socially progressive. Here, on the other hand, while Schweitzer is certainly the most moderate candidate on social/cultural issues by far, he's proudly been branding himself as the "most fiscally conservative candidate" due to his tax cut and public sector wage cut plans.

All of that said, it will be interesting to see what impact this whole thing has on his campaign. He's certainly been getting a good amount of positive media coverage due to this, which could help bolster his fortunes.

[Njall]

Fildebrandt's not having a good week.

[Njall]

Update: Fildebrandt has quit the UCP caucus. Probably good for the party because this weeklong saga has been a lot more entertaining than leadership news.

[Njall]

I'm thinking that Kenney will take the leadership, especially since many of those who will be voting were brought into the party through his Unite Alberta campaign.

For the general election, out of the options you've given, I'd pick 'UCP will likely win the next election but not certain.' Assuming Kenney wins the leadership, it's important to note that polling has shown that he's the leadership contender who the most voters are unsure about (the Mainstreet poll that tested how the UCP would do under each leader showed 28% of respondents undecided under a Kenney leadership - under Jean, by comparison, undecideds were at 21%). I could see a range of outcomes from a UCP majority to an NDP minority playing out.

[Njall]

I'm thinking that Kenney will take the leadership, especially since many of those who will be voting were brought into the party through his Unite Alberta campaign.

For the general election, out of the options you've given, I'd pick 'UCP will likely win the next election but not certain.' Assuming Kenney wins the leadership, it's important to note that polling has shown that he's the leadership contender who the most voters are unsure about (the Mainstreet poll that tested how the UCP would do under each leader showed 28% of respondents undecided under a Kenney leadership - under Jean, by comparison, undecideds were at 21%). I could see a range of outcomes from a UCP majority to an NDP minority playing out.

Just for curiosity how do you think it would breakdown.  My thinking by region goes like the following.

Rest of Alberta - Massively UCP and asides from Lethbridge or maybe a riding or two in the Capital region I expect a UCP sweep and maybe even those ones.

Calgary - Favours the UCP, but the NDP still has a strong base, but they would really need a perfect storm to hold most of what they have as last time it was 33% NDP, 31% PC, and 24% WRP so even if some don't support the new party it will be tough for the NDP here.

Edmonton - Should stay largely NDP, question is whether it will be a clean sweep or just the majority of seats.

I am pretty much 100% certain the UCP will win the popular vote, otherwise an NDP minority would probably still have the UCP winning the popular vote, but do so by piling up massive margins in Rural Alberta while narrowly losing most of its urban seats.

Well, I can't say exactly until the Electoral Boundaries Commission releases its final report. But if the recommendations of the interim report were to be adopted with no changes, my thinking would go along these lines:

Seats where NDP are favoured:

• All 20 seats in Edmonton proper
• Calgary-Buffalo
• Calgary-Currie
• Calgary-Klein
• Calgary-Mountain View (pickup from Alberta Liberal)
• Calgary-Varsity
• St. Albert
• Sherwood Park
• Lethbridge-West

Total: 28 seats

Plus...

Tossups where NDP could be competitive:

• Calgary-Forest
• Calgary-Cross (if Ricardo Miranda re-runs)
• Calgary-Airport (if Irfan Sabir re-runs)
• Lethbridge-East
• Medicine Hat (if Bob Wanner re-runs)
• St. Albert-Redwater
• Strathcona-Sherwood Park
• Leduc-Beaumont
• Lesser Slave Lake
• Wetaskiwin-Camrose
• Banff-Stoney
• Grande Prairie (potential pickup)
• Red Deer-North
• Red Deer-South

Total: 14 seats

The caveat here is that, aside from not knowing what the actual boundaries would be, I'm also unsure of where a third party like the Alberta Party would be competitive. That said, if the NDP were to somehow win every seat that I've listed here, they would have 42 seats, which could be enough for a minority government.

[Njall]

Generally speaking, the most favourable seats to the UCP would be the ridings in suburban southwest Edmonton, likely Edmonton-Whitemud, Edmonton-McClung, and Edmonton-South West on the current map. Those seats tend to be wealthier and more conservative-leaning, so I'd look there first.

The Alberta Party's performance would certainly be a wildcard. In Calgary, for example, I imagine that many of the seats that the Alberta Party would be competitive in would otherwise be seats which would be favourable to the NDP (such as Calgary-Currie and Calgary-Varsity).

I would caution against directly using federal results to predict provincial results, especially in Alberta. Speaking as an Albertan, my province is very big-C Conservative federally, but a lot of that can still be related to the western populist flavour of the federal Conservatives, and the general feeling that only the CPC will stand up for Alberta's interests. These voting intentions don't always transition over to the provincial level. For example, the city of Lethbridge voted approximately 53% for the NDP provincially in 2015, yet in the federal election, the NDP won very few polls in the city, and the Conservative candidate won the Lethbridge riding (which, to be fair, contains rural Lethbridge County in addition to the city) with 56%. Every poll in the West Lethbridge section of the city (everything west of the Oldman River) went NDP provincially and CPC federally in 2015.

The 42 seats that I listed out should be within the NDP's grasp if they can retain their support in urban Alberta, plus a couple of rural seats (Lesser Slave Lake, Banff-Stoney, and Wetaskiwin-Camrose) that have special factors affecting them, particularly above-average indigenous populations. Granted, it would be tough, and their polling numbers would have to improve, but it is at least within the realm of possibility.

[Njall]

Insights West released this poll of UCP candidate favourability the other day.

Leadership candidate results:
Jeff Callaway: 8% favourable / 10% unfavourable / 81% unsure or don't know who he is
Brian Jean: 44% favourable / 28% unfavourable / 29% unsure or don't know who he is
Jason Kenney: 32% favourable / 34% unfavourable / 34% unsure or don't know who he is
Doug Schweitzer: 11% favourable / 17% unfavourable / 61% unsure or don't know who he is

Leadership candidate net favourability based on results above:
Jeff Callaway: -2
Brian Jean: +16
Jason Kenney: -2
Doug Schweitzer: -6

The poll also tested favourability of current party leaders.

Results:
Rachel Notley: 38% favourable / 52% unfavourable / 9% unsure
Nathan Cooper: 30% favourable / 29% unfavourable / 42% unsure
David Khan: 19% favourable / 29% unfavourable / 52% unsure
Greg Clark: 22% favourable / 28% unfavourable / 50% unsure

[Njall]

The 42 seats that I listed out should be within the NDP's grasp if they can retain their support in urban Alberta, plus a couple of rural seats (Lesser Slave Lake, Banff-Stoney, and Wetaskiwin-Camrose) that have special factors affecting them, particularly above-average indigenous populations. Granted, it would be tough, and their polling numbers would have to improve, but it is at least within the realm of possibility.

The main take away I got from your list is how tough a situation the NDP is in.

It looks like they'll need to hold on to their 2015 voters AND hold off the Liberals/Alberta party AND take some folks from the UCP to even manage a small loss in the popular vote. Even then I raised an eyebrow at a couple of your picks (e.g. I really doubt the NDP win Medicine Hat against a united right unless they have a decent sized win). I'm not writing them off (this is Canada after all ), but I suspect the result will look something like 1993. The progressives will sweep or near sweep Edmonton, win a handful of other seats, but the Tories will still maintain a comfortable majority.

I tend to agree.  Outside of the two main cities the two Lethbridge ridings, Sherwood Park, and St. Albert are the only four I think they have decent shots in and the first two have a large university population while the latter are suburbs of Edmonton.  In Calgary, they will probably win a few in the central parts of the city which have a younger population and are more left leaning, but not much beyond that.  The Southern part they struggled even before merging so expect the UCP to win big in the area of Harper and Kenney's federal riding.  The West and Northwest are pretty solid while Northeast and East it depends on how well the NDP does amongst ethnic groups although I think Kenney is pretty solid with them so would probably win there even if those areas might vote Liberal federally.  Edmonton I agree will probably go largely NDP although I think if they chose Jean, the UCP have a good shot at picking up some of the suburban ones particularly in the Southwestern part of the city while with Kenney a sweep is more likely.  He does as well in Calgary as Jean, but in Edmonton most polls show Jean being fairly competitive with the NDP, but Kenney well back.

I largely agree with you both. I would say not to underestimate how the NDP might do in east and northeast Calgary, especially in Calgary-Cross, where Ricardo Miranda has been a visible and popular Cabinet Minister. Miranda's margin of victory in 2015 is deceptively close, and only got that close because the PC candidate was Rick Hanson, who was the Chief of Police until he was recruited as a candidate by Prentice, and who had led a large-scale outreach effort to build positive relations between the police and ethnic communities in Calgary's northeast. In Calgary generally, I think that an NDP performance that largely mirrors the Liberals in 2008 is fairly readily achievable, but it'll be a challenge to expand beyond that.

Based on the interim reports, I also think that the results of the electoral boundaries commission will help give the NDP a bit of a boost, due to the extra seat that will be added to each of Calgary and Edmonton at the expense of rural seats, as well as due to shifted boundaries in some other parts of the province.

Expanding a bit on a few of the "unconventional" seats I identified that could also be held by the NDP...:

Grande Prairie: the boundaries commission appears set to create an entirely-urban seat in Grande Prairie. While the NDP didn't win either of the "rurban" Grande Prairie seats in 2015, I believe that they got enough votes in the city itself to have won an urban seat if it had existed. Winning this seat will still be a stretch, but creating the urban seat will at least make for a competitive race.

Lesser Slave Lake: this seat is the only Albertan seat which has a population that is majority indigenous (I believe around 54% of the population is indigenous). While Pearl Calahasen held the seat for a long time for the PCs, she was advantaged in part by coming from the area's Metis community (four of Alberta's eight Metis settlements are within the riding). As I'm sure we all know on this forum, indigenous voters tend to heavily favour the NDP over conservative parties, and that trend along with the riding's demographics and the fact that the MLA is a fairly well-known Cabinet Minister makes it competitive.

Wetaskiwin-Camrose: Bruce Hinkley won with 43% in 2015, ahead of many other rural NDP MLAs. Additionally, the boundaries commission appears set to unite the four Maskwacis Cree nations within the riding (currently, only two of the four are within the riding), and these four indigenous nations represent potentially the strongest NDP polls in the province, with the NDP earning a combined 95% of the vote there in 2015. Wetaskiwin-Camrose already had a relatively-high indigenous population (around 15%), and this will further boost it. I'm unsure how Hinkley is viewed on the ground in his riding, but between the high indigenous population, and the general population concentration in the cities of Wetaskiwin and Camrose as opposed to the rural parts of the riding, I see the NDP still being competitive here in 2019.

Banff-Stoney: this is especially contingent on the choices of the boundaries commission. However, in the interim report, the commission recommended changing the boundaries of Banff-Cochrane by removing Cochrane, and adding a portion of Rocky View County in addition to the Tsuu T'ina nation. These changes are important because Cochrane was the conservative anchor of the riding - the NDP only won about 34% here in 2015. In the rest of the riding, the NDP won 54% of the vote, including 56% in Canmore and 61% in Banff. By removing Cochrane, and replacing it in-part with an indigenous community, the commission is likely creating a riding where the NDP won over 50% of the vote in 2015, making them favoured here for 2019.

St. Albert-Redwater: this proposed seat combines St. Albert with the NDP-favouring southern portion of the current Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater riding, which makes it friendlier to the NDP than either of the current Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater or Spruce Grove-St. Albert ridings.

[Njall]

Which seats would the Alberta Party be expected to overperform in besides Calgary Elbow? I'm assuming seats with lots of well off folks who don't like right wing parties' populism and/or religiosity, but unfortunately I don't know which seats those are in Alberta

Mostly in Calgary, but cannot think of any off the top of my head.  If they get only in the teens in Calgary, probably no other seats or random one, but if they crack the 20% mark there you could see a few others flip.  Probably ones closest to the central part of the city as those areas tend to be wary of more right wing parties, but are fairly centrists rather than left leaning.

We've been finding that education is better as a party performance metric than income, but those two metrics tend to have at least a rough correlation themselves. Anyhow, largely because of the fact that Greg Clark comes from Calgary, I would agree that the most likely over performing seats for the AP would also come from Calgary. Specifically, the AP would be likely, at least in theory, to over perform in Calgary-Currie, Calgary-Buffalo, Calgary-Mountain View, Calgary-Varsity, and possibly Calgary-Glenmore. The big issue for the AP is that several of these seats are also amongst the strongest theoretical seats for the NDP in Calgary, and in a polarized election, I could see centrists and mild progressives voting to re-elect the NDP in order to keep the UCP out of office.

Outside of Calgary, there would also be some chances for the AP to over perform in parts of Edmonton, and in Alberta's smaller cities. In a contrast to Calgary, where the AP's best chances roughly mirror the NDP's, in Edmonton I'd say that the AP's best chances roughly mirror those of the UCP, so the more affluent suburban ridings of southwest and west Edmonton (as well as perhaps satellite cities like St. Albert). I would also say that the historic Liberal voting trend in Lethbridge-East, as well as 2015 over performances by the ALP in Red Deer-North and the AP in Grande Prairie-Wapiti indicate the potential for stronger performances in the smaller cities.

[Njall]

If chosen as leader and elected in 2019, Schweitzer will roll the minimum wage back from $15/hr to $12.20/hr.

[Njall]

Three more endorsements from the UCP Caucus came out today. MLAs Jason Nixon (Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre) and Ric McIver (Calgary-Hays) have endorsed Jason Kenney, while MLA Wayne Drysdale (Grande Prairie-Wapiti) has endorsed Doug Schweitzer.

Nixon has stepped down as caucus Whip in order to make this endorsement, and Deputy Leader Mike Ellis will be taking over the Whip's duties for now (which theoretically are minimal, since the Legislature doesn't even sit until after the leadership election). Nixon also stated that it is likely that him and McIver will be stepping down as caucus representatives on the party's Interim Joint Board.

Of note, Drysdale was the only sitting PC MLA to endorse Richard Starke over Jason Kenney in the recent PC leadership election.

[Njall]

Do you think the fact the polls show Jean would fare better against Notley and has a more positive approval rating than Kenney will have any impact.  It seems Kenney is the favourite within the party, but they would do better in a general election with Jean than Kenney.

I doubt it. I've seen spin on those polls from the Kenney camp that it's a bad thing that Jean does better amongst the general public because he would supposedly attract some (small-l) liberal support, and the Kenney supporters would rather back a "true" conservative.

Jean's getting character-assassinated by both the Kenney and Callaway camps, and I think Kenney's brought in too many people who are loyal to him personally for Jean to pull off a victory.

[Njall]

The UCP held their first leadership debate last night. If anyone's interested in watching it, the video feed is available on the UCP Facebook page.

Also: UCP MLA Rick Fraser (Calgary-South East), formerly a PC, is leaving the UCP caucus to sit as an independent.

[Njall]

I've been neglecting to update this over the last month or so, but today is the big day, so I figured I'd post a quick re-cap of the race:

UCP members have been able to vote since Thursday morning, and polls are open for about 3.5 more hours (until 5:00pm MDT). Around 60,000 of the UCP's approximately 110,000 members registered to vote, and an update from the UCP last night said that around 80% of registered members had voted by that point.

I don't believe that this was previously mentioned, but little known leadership candidate and former WRP President Jeff Callaway dropped out of the race a number of weeks ago to back Jason Kenney. This was a surprise to almost no one, as it had always seemed that Callaway's sole purpose in the race was to attack Brian Jean from the former WRP part of the UCP.

Members are voting with preferential ballots between the three remaining leadership candidates: Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, and Doug Schweitzer.

To be quite frank, nothing super serious has happened on the policy end of things. Fiscally/economically-speaking, all three favour more-or-less the same outcomes, although their personal blueprints for getting there may have slight variations. The candidates are most differentiated by their stances, both real and publicly-perceived, on social issues, with Kenney being the most conservative, Schweitzer being the most progressive (though he insists on calling himself a "social moderate"), and Jean taking a vaguely libertarian stance.

It is widely thought that Kenney has the race sewn up. If this proves to be true, it would likely prove to be the best outcome for parties opposing the UCP, as Kenney is a much more publicly-polarizing figure than Jean or Schweitzer.

In terms of caucus endorsements, Jean and Kenney are tied at 11 MLAs each. Schweitzer has one MLA endorsement, while three MLAs have remained "neutral" due to holding caucus leadership positions (I put neutral in quotation marks because at least two of the three are thought to be quietly backing Kenney). For those interested, caucus endorsements break down as follows:

Jean:

• Leela Aheer (Chestermere-Rocky View)
• Wayne Anderson (Highwood)
• Dave Hanson (Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills)
• Todd Loewen (Grande Prairie-Smoky)
• Don MacIntyre (Innisfail-Sylvan Lake)
• Ron Orr (Lacombe-Ponoka)
• Angela Pitt (Airdrie)
• Dave Schneider (Little Bow)
• Pat Stier (Livingstone-Macleod)
• Glenn van Dijken (Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock)
• Tany Yao (Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo)

Kenney:

• Drew Barnes (Cypress-Medicine Hat)
• Scott Cyr (Bonnyville-Cold Lake)
• Prab Gill (Calgary-Greenway)
• Grant Hunter (Cardston-Taber-Warner)
• Ric McIver (Calgary-Hays)
• Jason Nixon (Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre)
• Prasad Panda (Calgary-Foothills)
• Dave Rodney (Calgary-Lougheed)
• Mark Smith (Drayton Valley-Devon)
• Rick Strankman (Drumheller-Stettler)
• Wes Taylor (Battle River-Wainwright)

Schweitzer:

• Wayne Drysdale (Grande Prairie-Wapiti)

Neutral:

• Nathan Cooper (Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills ; Interim Leader)
• Mike Ellis (Calgary-West ; Deputy Leader)
• Richard Gotfried (Calgary-Fish Creek ; House Leader)

The federal Conservative caucus has also largely made their voices heard in the race with endorsements. Of the 29 Conservative MPs, 24 have made endorsements, and 23 of those endorsements have gone to Kenney. Only Blaine Calkins (Red Deer--Lacombe) has backed Jean. The only MPs who have not made endorsements are: Zaid Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning), Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore), Mike Lake (Edmonton--Wetaskiwin), Len Webber (Calgary Confederation), and David Yurdiga (Fort McMurray--Cold Lake).


Finally, I'll note that results will be announced shortly after the polls close at 5:00pm. I imagine the UCP will be live-streaming on Facebook.