Alberta election 2023

[Oryxslayer]

A surprising lack of E-Day commentary. Nothing but bated breath cause everyone expects a close result?

CBC results page for later today.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/electionatlasCA/status/1663314634512777216?s=20

This is a good point. The election has more than once been described as "Americanized" as a response to the duoploistic parties squeezing out all others, and how the coalitions assembled break down in a familiar fashion according to demographic subsamples. The same may possibly be expected of advance voters.

[Oryxslayer]

First results in the first 3 ridings are not advance polls.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't get why it's taking so long, this is unusual.

CBC is just now thinking the advance votes should be machine counted but they are having to be opened up to manually confirmed.

https://twitter.com/electionatlasCA/status/1663381591643619328?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

Ad after 15 minutes of nothing, it looks like the big advance boxes are finally showing up.

[Oryxslayer]

And rural seats are starting to be called with e-Day polls finally reporting.

[Oryxslayer]

7 Rural seats called for UCP, all with percentages 70% or higher.


Edmonton-Meadows called for NDP.

[Oryxslayer]

24 seats according to my count at the moment still have insufficient votes to deem the leads relevant. Surprisingly, a majority are in Calgary.

[Oryxslayer]

12 Seats called for UCP, all rural.

NDP has 5 called, 4 in Edmonton, 1 is Calgary-Mountainview.

Notley is projected to hold her seat.

[Oryxslayer]

CBC reports that only about 30% of machine tabulators are working at Elections Alberta. Which is likely the source of our issues.

[Oryxslayer]

First official flip of the night is called to the NDP in Calgary-Currie. Projected count is 23-11 UCP right now.

Note these figures include Jennifer Johnson in the projected UCP total.

[Oryxslayer]

CBC (at long last) makes the call of a UCP majority.

[Oryxslayer]

For someone not very familiar with Canadian (let alone Albertan) politics, why is Calgary dramatically more conservative than Edmonton?  Is it just about oil?

It's primarily about oil. Pretty much all of Alberta's oil & gas companies are headquartered in Calgary. Calgary is home to white collar conservatism because of this.

It's not just about oil, but there is a certain corporate city vs government city kind of dynamic. I will note though that as has been observed on numerous occasions, Albertans are more Big-C conservatives than small-c conservatives. There's a certain overriding political identity, but in terms of ideological preference (you see this municipally where there are no party labels), the big cities prefer centrist progressives, all other things being equal.

Question, not just for you but for other Canadians who are informed enough to answer: Do we think Notley wins if the only thing that changes was if the Conservatives hypothetically controlled Ottawa and not Trudeau's Liberals?

As you mentioned, Alberta does have a big-C Conservative political culture federally for a multitude of understandable reasons  relating to all the Federal parties and their coalitions. This means that the federal Conservatives do have an air of being beyond reproach, but the provincial or local ones are not. Certain issues that could/should be blamed on provincial politicians are blamed on the disliked Liberals. So if it wasn't the Liberals, would it be the UCP instead collecting the blame, and would it be enough?

[Oryxslayer]

For someone not very familiar with Canadian (let alone Albertan) politics, why is Calgary dramatically more conservative than Edmonton?  Is it just about oil?

It's primarily about oil. Pretty much all of Alberta's oil & gas companies are headquartered in Calgary. Calgary is home to white collar conservatism because of this.

It's not just about oil, but there is a certain corporate city vs government city kind of dynamic. I will note though that as has been observed on numerous occasions, Albertans are more Big-C conservatives than small-c conservatives. There's a certain overriding political identity, but in terms of ideological preference (you see this municipally where there are no party labels), the big cities prefer centrist progressives, all other things being equal.

Question, not just for you but for other Canadians who are informed enough to answer: Do we think Notley wins if the only thing that changes was if the Conservatives hypothetically controlled Ottawa and not Trudeau's Liberals?

As you mentioned, Alberta does have a big-C Conservative political culture federally for a multitude of understandable reasons  relating to all the Federal parties and their coalitions. This means that the federal Conservatives do have an air of being beyond reproach, but the provincial or local ones are not. Certain issues that could/should be blamed on provincial politicians are blamed on the disliked Liberals. So if it wasn't the Liberals, would it be the UCP instead collecting the blame, and would it be enough?

Any takers?