Alberta Election 2019

[DL]

Yes. It's not a perfect 1:1 analogy, but the differences are kind of like Houston and Austin.

FYI, both Austin and Houston vote pretty overwhelmingly Democratic these days.

[DL]

The UCP is still heavily favoured to win but FWIW the paywalled daily tracking from Mainstreet has the UCP lead is now barely in double digits and the NDP is now ahead in Edmonton and almost tied with the UCP in Calgary while the UCP is potentially wasting a ton of votes with a North Korean-style margin in rural Alberta.

If the UCP province-wide lead slips further to say mid-single digits, then things could actually get interesting

[DL]

The UCP lead over the NDP continues to narrow and the NDP continues to gain ground in Edmonton and Calgary...

[DL]

In 1996 the BC NDP lost the popular vote to the BC Liberals 41-38 butbthey won in seats 39-33

[DL]

The UCP lead over the NDP continues to narrow and the NDP continues to gain ground in Edmonton and Calgary...

What'd be interesting is if the NDP actually surpasses its 2015 Calgary performance (even though it's Kenney's  backyard)

That is almost certain to happen. In 2015 the NDP won Calgary 35% to 33% for the PCs and 26% for Wildrose. In a pure two-way race its almost certain that the NDP will get over 40% in Calgary...I think that Calgary is moving away from its past as a conservative monolith and will start to have a voting pattern more like Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg

[DL]

As someone who worked on that poll, I would be a bit cautious. It was leaked by the client (we seem to have a problem with that, lol).

While the methodology is sound, my worry is that because we had to disclose the client (this is necessary under Alberta election law), conservatives were less likely to want to do the poll in the first place, as it was for a union.

How many people in Alberta would even know what "unifor" is? Unless you are a serious political junkie you probably think its a forestry company

[DL]

so comparing apples to apples a 13 point UCP lead is now a 4 point lead. The trend line is very clear!

[DL]

FYI in 2015 the NDP won 16 out of 28 seats in Calgary CMA while winning the popular vote in Calgary by a slim 33-31 margin over the PCs.

If the NDP wins Calgary - say - by a 46-44 margin its not inconceivable that they could win 16 (or more) seats again.

[DL]

Also very much like Manitoba and Saskatchewan where the NDP tends to do very well in Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon but get annihilated in rural areas

[DL]

New poll by Research Co that was in field March 29-April 1:

Voting Intention (Decided Voters) in Alberta:

United Conservative Party (UCP) – 45%
New Democratic Party (NDP) – 40%
Alberta Party – 6%
Liberal Party – 3%
Other parties – 6%

Its getting interesting

[DL]

In Ontario there was remarkably little CATI polling done and that one poll i know of that was done with live-interviewers by Innovative had the NDP ahead so go figure...

[DL]

Yesterday was the first day (of 5) of advance voting, and 140,000 folks turned out to vote. This is compared to 58,000 on the first day of advance voting last election. It should be noted that Elections Alberta is allowing voters to vote at any advance polling station in the province, no matter the riding, so voters who are out of their home ridings but still in the province don’t have to request absentee ballots. Yesterday, 33,000 people voted at an advance poll outside their home riding.

They’ll be counted for the riding they live in. When a voter goes to an advance poll outside their riding, the elections workers will print them a ballot for their home riding. After advance voting ends, the ballots will be sent to a central facility in Edmonton and counted there after Election Day votes are counted.

The same thing is done in BC elections and FWIW those out of riding absentee ballots in BC tend to skew heavily NDP

What would happen to the votes of those 33000? Would they be counted in the riding they voted in or the riding they live in?

[DL]

The rolling tracking poll that Mainstreet is doing shows the gap narrowing yet again and the NDP getting over the 40% mark for the first time...I don't see them closing the gap completely but if the province wide gap can get to 4 points and the NDP can move ahead in Calgary we could actually have a real race

[DL]

Our internal polls do not show the Liberals winning a seat BTW. The NDP are winning Mountain View, perhaps their only pickup of the night.

Will you make an overall prediction of the seat count?

[DL]

Our internal polls do not show the Liberals winning a seat BTW. The NDP are winning Mountain View, perhaps their only pickup of the night.

The only other potential pickup I think is Grande Prairie.

And Grande Prairie is notionally an NDP seat on the new boundaries