Alberta election 2023

[Hatman 🍁]

How many seats would you categorize as "rural"?

Alberta is easy to break down. 1/3 live in Calgary, 1/3 live in Edmonton, 1/3 live in the rest. Of course "the rest" is not entirely rural, but most small cities vote like the rurals, except for Lethbridge.

[Hatman 🍁]

I kinda wish the south side of Calgary was split into "south central" and "deep south" instead of southeast and southwest...it would make more sense politically to see more of an inner 'burbs vs outer 'burbs split

I'm guessing since everyone knows what quadrant they live in, this was the easiest way to break down the data.

[Hatman 🍁]

The north end of the city is more diverse, and poorer.

[Hatman 🍁]

Hmm. If the NDP wins Alberta, then it's quite possible the NDP loses Griesbach in the next election. Unless Notley somehow has a long honeymoon period.

[Hatman 🍁]

Key ridings? And only 12 of them? The NDP needs to pick up at least 20 to win!

Why not just list the 20 ridings they need to pick up? Here were the 20 closest UCP-won ridings from the last election:

Calgary-Falconridge: 0.6% (this isn't even on the CBC list!)
Calgary-Currie: 0.8% (neither is this one)
Calgary-Varsity: 2.7% (nor this one!)
Edmonton-South West: 3.1%
Sherwood Park: 5.4%
Calgary-Klein: 7.7%
Banff-Kananaskis: 9.3%
Lethbridge-East: 13.7%
Calgary-North East: 13.7%
Morinville-St. Albert: 16.9%
Calgary-Cross: 16.9%
Calgary-Beddington: 17.4%
Calgary-East: 17.5%
Calgary-Edgemont: 18.8%
Calgary-Acadia: 19.7%
Strathcona-Sherwood Park: 20.2%
Calgary-Elbow: 20.9%
Lesser Slave Lake: 21.6%
Calgary-Bow: 21.7%
Calgary-Glenmore: 23.6%

[Hatman 🍁]

Key ridings? And only 12 of them? The NDP needs to pick up at least 20 to win!

Why not just list the 20 ridings they need to pick up? Here were the 20 closest UCP-won ridings from the last election:

Calgary-Falconridge: 0.6% (this isn't even on the CBC list!)
Calgary-Currie: 0.8% (neither is this one)
Calgary-Varsity: 2.7% (nor this one!)
Edmonton-South West: 3.1%
Sherwood Park: 5.4%
Calgary-Klein: 7.7%
Banff-Kananaskis: 9.3%
Lethbridge-East: 13.7%
Calgary-North East: 13.7%
Morinville-St. Albert: 16.9%
Calgary-Cross: 16.9%
Calgary-Beddington: 17.4%
Calgary-East: 17.5%
Calgary-Edgemont: 18.8%
Calgary-Acadia: 19.7%
Strathcona-Sherwood Park: 20.2%
Calgary-Elbow: 20.9%
Lesser Slave Lake: 21.6%
Calgary-Bow: 21.7%
Calgary-Glenmore: 23.6%

Well I think the assumption is that ridings like Falconridge, Currie and Varsity are very obviously going NDP, so not really "key ridings".

Lethbridge-West is very obviously going to go NDP too, yet is on the CBC list.

[Hatman 🍁]

It's pretty staggering just how much ground the NDP has to make up from 2019. Polling averages suggest a 20%-ish positive swing for the NDP, and even with that swing, the NDP's hopes are on a knife's edge. Even with Danielle Smith doing her level best to help the NDP over the finish line, I'd still rather put my money on the UCP.

Keep in mind that swings aren't uniform--and they'll probably be less marked in the Edmonton-area seats the NDP already holds.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of big swings in Edmonton. Edmonton had larger swings toward the UCP in 2019 than Calgary, so there's a chance those voters go back to the NDP.

[Hatman 🍁]

In the end, both far-right parties running "huge slates" fizzled out and didn't end up registering that many after all. With the deadline now passed:

Total candidates registered,
UCP: 87 (out of 87 ridings)
NDP: 87
Green: 41 (most since 2008)
SMA: 38 (Palowski's outfit)
AP: 19 (fewest since 2008)
WLC: 16 (Paul Hunman's outfit)
AIP: 14
Liberal: 13 (fewest since 1944 when they didn't run any candidates. Even fewer than the NEP days)

[Hatman 🍁]

IVR vs Online mode effect for sure. 

[Hatman 🍁]

The Calgary CMA definitely does not include Banff. It includes Airdire, Chestermere and Cochrane.

[Hatman 🍁]

It was a very enjoyable debate, both leaders did well, and it was refreshing to see two women face off against each other for a change. I agree that the "winner" depends on your political perspective, but in an attempt to put on a neutral hat, I think Smith was the winner, even though most of what she was saying was pure dishonest drivel. But, she was really good at communicating that drivel. Notley had a few falters, but also made some great quips. I also really liked her answer to which policies you like from the opposite party.

[Hatman 🍁]

We're currently in field with an online poll. Since there's no client, I don't mind blabbing a bit about it (AMA!). Quite a good response over night, considering it's the beginning of a long weekend. Based on unweighted data, it looks like the UCP are up by ~5 points.

[Hatman 🍁]

We're currently in field with an online poll. Since there's no client, I don't mind blabbing a bit about it (AMA!). Quite a good response over night, considering it's the beginning of a long weekend. Based on unweighted data, it looks like the UCP are up by ~5 points.

Any divulgeable Calgary-specific numbers?

It appears the NDP has a slight lead in Calgary.

A big caveat here is I'm dealing with unweighted data, so I'm extrapolating based on who respondents indicated they voted for in the last federal and provincial elections.

[Hatman 🍁]

We're currently in field with an online poll. Since there's no client, I don't mind blabbing a bit about it (AMA!). Quite a good response over night, considering it's the beginning of a long weekend. Based on unweighted data, it looks like the UCP are up by ~5 points.

Any divulgeable Calgary-specific numbers?

It appears the NDP has a slight lead in Calgary.

A big caveat here is I'm dealing with unweighted data, so I'm extrapolating based on who respondents indicated they voted for in the last federal and provincial elections.

Do you weight by past vote?

No, but it will be used as a benchmark for accuracy purposes. People often forget who they voted for, and of course there are always people who didn't vote in the last election, so there's the question of what to do with them.

[Hatman 🍁]

Everything is very rough, and very "back of the envelope" right now, as I'm just looking at raw numbers, but to give you more perspective, it seems that the NDP's numbers in Edmonton are very similar to 2019, maybe up by a couple of points. So yeah, the UCP lead is coming from the rurals. The numbers in Lethbridge and Red Deer are bit too small to extrapolate (n=35 combined).

We did ask full postal code, so I will be able to have some fun with the numbers, in terms of geography, but there's always the caveats about subsamples. 

[Hatman 🍁]

At one time there was speculation that the NDP could win the popular vote and lose the election due to "wasted votes" in Edmonton. Now I think that the reverse would be more likely. I could see the UCP win the popular vote by as much as 3 or 4 points and have the NDP win due to lots of wasted UCP votes in rural Alberta. Similarly in Manitoba, a tied popular vote almost invariably means an NDP win because the PCs tend to waste so many votes in rural Manitoba.

This makes sense. A lot of that Notleymania vote in Edmonton that the party won in 2015 is not coming back, meaning the city isn't going to be the NDP vote sink to counter the UCP vote sink in the rurals.

[Hatman 🍁]

Alex McPhee is not a furry lol

[Hatman 🍁]

Alex McPhee is not a furry lol

What is this profile pic then because that looks like a sona to me (bio also says “pronghorn”)

Why do you care?

I was making an observation

And I like seeing other furries around lol

Haven't seen any pics of him as a furry. I'm not sure if the NDP would've let him run if such things existed (he was a federal NDP candidate in Saskatchewan in 2021) - though who knows.

[Hatman 🍁]

Today's Mainstreet tracker has the UCP lead down to 1.2%: 47.1-45.9.

Given what can probably be assumed, the UCP needs to lead by a few points to have a tied seat count most likely, right?

I would say nobody really knows. There is a belief that the NDP won't rack up the enormous majorities in Edmonton that they had in 2015, and that's probably right, but it's hard to be certain. Conversely, it's also hard to be sure that the minor right-wing parties won't have decent showings in rural areas to the point of keeping UCP margins out of the stratosphere there. FPTP is very random, and Alberta has undergone so many political shifts in recent years that trying to predict seat count in a close popular vote election is tough.

That said, I think the UCP is probably going to be underpolled and win by around 6-8 points. But maybe that's just the pessimism speaking.

Maybe Hatman has some insight into why Conservatives are seemingly always underpolled in Alberta.

Based on the polling we're doing now, there are definitely some categories of low response rate populations that are prone to voting UCP, and there is a lot of demographic polarization in this race. How pollsters weight their data will play a huge roll in their accuracy, and is probably why we saw a lot of variation in the polls early on. I think the pollsters are herding now, so they've settled on their weighting schemes for now.

[Hatman 🍁]

Berguet is a terrible human being, and I'd prefer not to see his tweets in this thread if that can be helped. Thanks.

[Hatman 🍁]

Elections Alberta might be a better place to go, since they report results by polling division.

[Hatman 🍁]

Rachel Notley shouldn't try to stay on like Dave Barrett did after losing an election as opposition leader. I don't think she can further increase NDP support in the regions where they fell just short of the needed breakthroughs. More likely Danielle Smith is pushed out as Premier than Notley wins the next election.

I'm of the "if she can't, who can?" POV.  Basically, given the nature of Alberta, *all* potential leaders are skunked in that light, however "right of the party" they might stand.

Notley's sort of "half Barrett, half Doer" in that light.

Exactly. Until there is a known successor who can be as popular as Notley, the NDP would be foolish to turf her.

[Hatman 🍁]

My hot take for the day is that UCP and NDP both suck and Alberta Party is based. Change my mind.

0.7% of the electorate can't be wrong!

[Hatman 🍁]

Rachel Notley shouldn't try to stay on like Dave Barrett did after losing an election as opposition leader. I don't think she can further increase NDP support in the regions where they fell just short of the needed breakthroughs. More likely Danielle Smith is pushed out as Premier than Notley wins the next election.

I'm of the "if she can't, who can?" POV.  Basically, given the nature of Alberta, *all* potential leaders are skunked in that light, however "right of the party" they might stand.

Notley's sort of "half Barrett, half Doer" in that light.

Exactly. Until there is a known successor who can be as popular as Notley, the NDP would be foolish to turf her.

IMO, once the UCP gets a more moderate leader, ANDP is sort of screwed. The UCP won this time even though Smith was a certified lunatic. How much better would the UCP do if, say, Travis Toews were the leader?

Haha, do you think that gang of nutbars is going to pick a moderate leader? I'm not too worried about it right now.

[Hatman 🍁]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.