Alberta (Canada) UCP leadership race

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Something worth noting when talking about ABpoli is that, while as a province it has moved to the left, it's not as dramatic a shift as some think. Let's look at the combined left-of-centre vote in this century:

2001: 35.7%
2004: 42.4%
2008: 39.5%
2012: 20.1% (exceptional situation - Wildrose was leading the polls, so many Lib/NDP voters held their noses and voted PC)
2015: 45.3%
2019: 34.1%

(21st century average: 36.2%, 39.4% if we disregard the weird 2012 election)

And if we go federal:

2000: 27.1%
2004: 37.9%
2006: 33.4%
2008: 32.9%
2011: 31.4%
2015: 38.7%
2019: 28.2%
2021: 35.5%

(21st century average: 33.1%)

From this, we can conclude two things:

1. The Alberta left is generally more popular than the national left. Similar phenomenon as many red states.
2. There hasn't really been a meaningful realignment of Alberta politics. The right still dominates public opinion in Alberta.

What has changed is that the Liberals are all but defunct and their votes have gone to the NDP (and I imagine the ABP, who I wouldn't charactarize as being on the left), while the right has yet to fully recover from the Wildrose/PC split. Kenney united the factions for about five minutes, but Covid screwed that up. But if we look at the polls right now, while the left is doing better than the 21st century average, they are still in the minority. A united Alberta right will defeat a united Alberta left.

A UCP leader who can unify the broad spectrum of centre-right to right-wing voters will easily win the next election, the question is, can anybody do that? Danielle Smith for example would probably screw this up by alienating the old PC wing (or anyone who, you know, identifies as a Canadian and doesn't want Alberta to start a bloodless civil war with Canada).

Alberta is a good case study for whether the right can stay united in Canada. There's a stereotype of AB Tories as being a coalition of religious wackjobs, sovereign citizen types, and climate deniers. And while this is probably more the case in Alberta than elsewhere, the Alberta right has always been a big family. Going as far back as Peter Lougheed, there has always been a more urbane, socially liberal faction within the right in Alberta. Probably even more so now, as Calgary has grown more multicultural and cosmopolitan - still attached to the Conservative brand (remember, the UCP did better here in 2019 than in freakin' Lethbridge!), but more detached from rural Alberta conservatism than before. It's emblematic that the highest-profile Calgary CPC MP (Rempel Garner) is basically a Liberal on social issues, kinda insane to imagine she's part of the same caucus from the same province as Arnold Viersen and Rachael Harder.

Bottom line is, the Alberta right encompasses most of the ideological diversity we see in the Canadian conservative movement, all the way from urban pride-marching business tories, to the suburban socially-conservative fiscally-moderate immigrants, to rural gun-loving evangelicals - really the only missing element is Francophone conservatism, and in the absence of a Quebec-based CPC leader, I don't think this is even an accessible demo for the CPC. If the next UCP leader finds a way to keep the incoherently big blue tent together, it could be a good blueprint (pun intended) for the federal party.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

There's also the issue that the left's vote in Alberta is better distributed - to win a majority, they basically need to run the table in Edmonton and Calgary and if they do that there will be fewer ridings in the city centres where they'll get more than 65% than there are rural ridings where the right will get that score even when they're losing. It'll never happen, but Alberta is one place where proportional representation would probably help the right.

Notley making inroads into Calgary is a huge factor in this. Before Calgary became left-accessible, the left vote was very inefficient in Alberta, as it was highly concentrated in Edmonton. Even in 2015, Calgary voting largely NDP was more a function of the deadly split on the right - unlike Edmonton, where they were genuinely very popular and pulled off nuclear margins. But in 2019, even as the province as a whole swung against the NDP, 14/26 Calgary seats showed a positive swing towards the NDP relative to the UCP (the latter compared to WR+PC). While a part of this is probably just Calgary growing more cosmopolitan, it's worth noting that in the federal election held that very same year, all Calgary seats trended right, at an average swing of +9.6 CPC. In other words, not only did Notley successfully consolidate the residual Liberal vote in Calgary (which wasn't the hard part), she made inroads into the federal Tory vote.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

So what's up with the race? Polling (which isn't usually that good for leadership elections anyway) seems to suggest a Jean-Smith fight, but Travis Toews is leading on endorsements. Jean only has two MLAs and Smith has one (although interestingly Jean is backed by Peter MacKay, pretty surprised by that. And Schulz has two big names in Rona Ambrose and Brad Wall backing her. What's the feel on the ground, are we headed for a Jean-Smith-Toews contest?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

So what's up with the race? Polling (which isn't usually that good for leadership elections anyway) seems to suggest a Jean-Smith fight, but Travis Toews is leading on endorsements. Jean only has two MLAs and Smith has one (although interestingly Jean is backed by Peter MacKay, pretty surprised by that. And Schulz has two big names in Rona Ambrose and Brad Wall backing her. What's the feel on the ground, are we headed for a Jean-Smith-Toews contest?

Based on what I've seen, as well as conversations with current and former UCP staffers at stampede events over the last week, it actually appears to be shaping up to be a Smith-Toews race, with Schulz in a relatively strong third. In my opinion, Jean's relatively strong polling numbers are more a result of name recognition than anything else. His campaign has been slow to get off the ground and Smith has outflanked him on Alberta autonomy issues, leaving Jean in an awkward position of being anti-establishment but also "not critical enough" of the status-quo, both in terms of government policy as well as the federal-provincial relationship. The general feeling right now is that Smith is the frontrunner in the race, although with the caveat that depending on who makes it on the ballot, Smith is likely to see a high degree of first-ballot support but may struggle to pick up votes from other candidates as they get eliminated (since it's a ranked ballot). For example, voters for Toews and Schulz (and other more minor candidates like Sawhney and Aheer) are going to be more likely to preference these other candidates after their first choice, as opposed to Smith.

Interesting - so Smith is kind of in a 2020 Peter MacKay situation where she's the frontrunner, but the ranked ballot may lead to an anti-Smith consolidation.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://mobile.twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1558090017070690304
Not worth making a thread over, but just want to bring to attention that nominations for the Alberta Liberal Party elections are closing in about two hours, and they have got literally no candidates.

I don't get why the Alberta Liberals are still limbering along. They're not going to replace the NDP as the main anti-Conservative option, and they're most certainly not going to replace the UCP as the main anti-NDP option. If the idea is to present a solid centrist third party like the Lib Dems to keep both the UCP and NDP in check, wouldn't they be better off merging with the Alberta Party?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

While Jean may not win the race, he will still get a significant number of votes - and i would think that UCP members who have Jean as first choice would be more like to have Smith as their second choice over a Kenney-supporter/clone like Toews

According to DaveBerta, Brian Jean's campaign has been flat.  Not that Daveberta himself has said anything to back this up, but this is my guess of the results of the first ballot (if the leadership vote was today, anyway.)

Danielle Smith 30%
Travis Toews 20%
Rebecca Schulz 20%
Brian Jean 15%
Rajan Sawhney 10%
Todd Loewen 3%
Leela Aheer 2%

Honestly, those figures are pretty close to what I'd guess as well. I'd also assume that the consolidations in subsequent rounds would be Smith+Jean+Loewen vs Toews+Schulz+Sawhney+Aheer. Under that assumption, we'd end up with a final round of Toews/Schulz slightly besting Smith, somewhat like how Scheer beat Bernier in the 2017 CPC leadership.

EDIT: as far as it comes to Jean, I've been seeing his campaign kinda fall flat as well. His issue is that he'd been active in Alberta autonomist spaces criticizing Kenney pre-leadership, but by coming out early and stronger on those issues, Smith has usurped his oxygen.

Would Jean supporters be likely to go over to Smith?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://mobile.twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1558090017070690304
Not worth making a thread over, but just want to bring to attention that nominations for the Alberta Liberal Party elections are closing in about two hours, and they have got literally no candidates.

I don't get why the Alberta Liberals are still limbering along. They're not going to replace the NDP as the main anti-Conservative option, and they're most certainly not going to replace the UCP as the main anti-NDP option. If the idea is to present a solid centrist third party like the Lib Dems to keep both the UCP and NDP in check, wouldn't they be better off merging with the Alberta Party?

That would mean accepting the Alberta Party is centrist.

But...they are? I mean, "centrist" depends on where you believe the centre to be, but in an Alberta split between UCP and NDP, I would think both the AP and ALP would fit into a broadly centrist category. Granted I don't know much about the minor parties in Alberta, is it the case that Liberals and Alberta party have bad blood?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here (even most Conservatives I know here in Ontario, most of whom support Poilievre, think Danielle Smith is nuts), but picking Danielle Smith would be such an incomprehensibly bad idea for the UCP. She would make the NDP the voice of stability and moderation. With the economy on the rebound, the UCP has a good shot of winning the next election as the low-tax, pro-energy sector party. Maybe throw in some populist red meat for the base alongside fiscal conservatism, like a commitment to not bring back vaccine mandates, for example. Instead, Danielle Smith would rather make the next election about a poorly-defined "sovereignty act" that would simply throw Alberta into a fight with a federal government, a fight that they simply cannot win.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

4th ballot
Danielle Smith 46.21%
Travis Toews 31.92
Brian Jean 13.50
Rebecca Schulz 8.37

Rebecca Schulz drops off.

Figured that Loewen dropping would bump Smith. Schulz definitely won't put her over the top, so this will likely go to the final ballot where a large minority of Jean voters put Smith over 50%.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The way that round just went for Smith, Rachel Notley may be due some early congratulations.

Loewen's downballot support was always going to help Smith, so I'm not surprised. Schulz voters will do Smith no favours, she's very much in the Toews camp.

But with her huge lead right now, even a small percentage of Jean voters will put her over the top. So this probably goes to the final round for a 52-53% Smith victory. At that point, yes, Rachel Notley will be due some congratulations.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Only 16% of Jean's downballot support will be needed to put Smith over the top.

Yeah, this is over.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Sighs oh, Alberta...

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Relatively is Smith to the right of say DeSantis

Hard to say, she's more left on social issues, and frankly neither Smith nor DeSantis have particularly clear economic principles so I can't compare.

Left/right aside, I would say Smith is relatively more radical, in the sense that her views are more out of the mainstream than DeSantis' views in their relative contexts.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Liz Truss might be the best comparison, although Danielle Smith seems to be more of an extrovert than Truss.

In some ways, although Truss is a team player. Smith is many things, but certainly not a team player (reason #999999 why she's going to be a disaster)

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Lmao Danielle Smith just said "the 30-year old living in her parents' basement, the single mom who can't afford nutritious meals for her children".

Clearly trying to ride Poilievre's coattails, although I'm not sure Poilievre will be super-enthused about being associated with Smith.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Relatively is Smith to the right of say DeSantis cause he nullify federal laws seems even to the right of the vast majority of Republican governors here

Think less DeSantis, more Kari Lake: vapid on policy but always sure to be on-point with the base, like somebody who's, say, 100% all-in on hydroxychloroquine & Trump-like climate change-denial.

Do  you think she’d be serious about trying to nullify federal laws cause yah that’s lunacy

It's impossible to say, honestly. It would be a pretty unprecedented move in Canada and I can't see the Supreme Court upholding something like that. But I also don't see how Smith could backtrack from that.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Searched twitter for 17th & 20th Premier of Alberta, only relevant result:

https://twitter.com/robbreakenridge/status/594149795012292608
Man, those 2015 Albertans don't even know…

Well, Danielle Smith is only #19, so Jen Gerson still has a chance!

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Keep in mind that Smith doesn't have a seat in the legislature. With her relatively close margin of victory, I think she'll have a hard time pushing caucus to table a sovereignty act while she's on the outside. She's said that she will run for a by-election, but I could also see an early election at this point.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Keep in mind that Smith doesn't have a seat in the legislature. With her relatively close margin of victory, I think she'll have a hard time pushing caucus to table a sovereignty act while she's on the outside. She's said that she will run for a by-election, but I could also see an early election at this point.

The UCP MLA in in Calgary-Elbow has resigned, a riding the NDP has a good chance to pick up and have something of a star candidate, Samir Kayande, an analyst at the Pembina Institute and a former oil and gas company executive.

Danielle Smith has already said that she won't call a byelection in this riding, but wants to run in a byelection in Southern Alberta, but not in Calgary-Elbow, even though she lived in Calgary for years and was even briefly a Calgary school trustee before getting the entire school board fired.

The tradition is for major parties to step down when a leader is seeking a seat, but in today's climate, I can't see that tradition being held, least of all by the ABNDP for Danielle Smith in a winnable riding. And I don't think Danielle Smith would risk her first act as premier being a by-election loss.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

These are the redistributed votes:

Danielle Smith
1st ballot: 34,949
6th ballot: 42,423
--------------------
7.474

Todd Loewen
1st ballot: 24,831
6th ballot: 36,480
--------------------
11,649

19,123 (not including those who didn't vote on subsequent ballots)
Todd Loewen received 60.9% of the voting redistributed ballots.

Travis Toews* not Todd Loewen

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

These are the redistributed votes:

Danielle Smith
1st ballot: 34,949
6th ballot: 42,423
--------------------
7.474

Todd Loewen
1st ballot: 24,831
6th ballot: 36,480
--------------------
11,649

19,123 (not including those who didn't vote on subsequent ballots)
Todd Loewen received 60.9% of the voting redistributed ballots.

Travis Toews* not Todd Loewen

Oops, my bad. Will fix.

Both middle-aged white guys from Grande Prairie with an ostentatiously German use of vowels, can't blame ya

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Keep in mind that Smith doesn't have a seat in the legislature. With her relatively close margin of victory, I think she'll have a hard time pushing caucus to table a sovereignty act while she's on the outside. She's said that she will run for a by-election, but I could also see an early election at this point.

The UCP MLA in in Calgary-Elbow has resigned, a riding the NDP has a good chance to pick up and have something of a star candidate, Samir Kayande, an analyst at the Pembina Institute and a former oil and gas company executive.

Danielle Smith has already said that she won't call a byelection in this riding, but wants to run in a byelection in Southern Alberta, but not in Calgary-Elbow, even though she lived in Calgary for years and was even briefly a Calgary school trustee before getting the entire school board fired.

The tradition is for major parties to step down when a leader is seeking a seat, but in today's climate, I can't see that tradition being held, least of all by the ABNDP for Danielle Smith in a winnable riding. And I don't think Danielle Smith would risk her first act as premier being a by-election loss.

The NDP also has a tradition though of not abiding by this tradition going back to the days when it was the CCF. Famously, CCFER Joe Noseworthy defeated former federal PC leader Arthur Meighan who was attempting a comeback.

In 1990 or 1991, the NDP also came relatively close to defeating Jean Chretien in New Brunswick when he ran there in a byelection.

I don't think anybody has a problem with Smith not running in this riding, even though it's already available, I think the problem is that she'll cause and call a byelection for herself, but not for the people of Calgary-Elbow.

She'll probably call both by-elections at the same time. Still seven more months until the writ is scheduled

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Keep in mind that Smith doesn't have a seat in the legislature. With her relatively close margin of victory, I think she'll have a hard time pushing caucus to table a sovereignty act while she's on the outside. She's said that she will run for a by-election, but I could also see an early election at this point.

The UCP MLA in in Calgary-Elbow has resigned, a riding the NDP has a good chance to pick up and have something of a star candidate, Samir Kayande, an analyst at the Pembina Institute and a former oil and gas company executive.

Danielle Smith has already said that she won't call a byelection in this riding, but wants to run in a byelection in Southern Alberta, but not in Calgary-Elbow, even though she lived in Calgary for years and was even briefly a Calgary school trustee before getting the entire school board fired.

The tradition is for major parties to step down when a leader is seeking a seat, but in today's climate, I can't see that tradition being held, least of all by the ABNDP for Danielle Smith in a winnable riding. And I don't think Danielle Smith would risk her first act as premier being a by-election loss.

I am not aware of this tradition. All parties contested the Calgary-Lougheed by-election in 2017 when Jason Kenney sought a seat. All parties contested the Calgary-Foothills by-election in 2014 when Jim Prentice sought a seat. All parties contested the Edmonton-McClung by-election in 1998 when Nancy MacBeth sought a seat. All parties contested the Edmonton-Whitemud by-election in 1985 when Don Getty sought a seat.

That is every time in Alberta since the end of the Second World War that either the premier or the leader of the opposition has sought to enter the legislature. At none of those elections did any party represented in the legislature fail to nominate a candidate.

Interesting. I'm aware of the tradition federally, although as Benjamin Frank pointed out, one that the NDP usually doesn't hold, and I guess it's not a thing in Alberta. The PCs sat out Chretien's 1990 byelection, and the Liberals sat out for both Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper. Although interestingly, Brian Mulroney wasn't given the same treatment. And now that I look into it, neither was Christy Clark when she ran for a byelection in Kelowna in 2013, after the bizarre situation of her winning a majority government but not a seat. But again, the NDP doesn't seem to observe this tradition. The Ontario Liberals didn't sit out for Patrick Brown either.

I was wrong, it's hardly "tradition" if it's only observed selectively.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

It's not common, but it's not unheard of, if that's what you mean by bizarre. I can think of 2 other occassions, but none as recent as Christy Clark. In 1985 in Quebec, Robert Bourassa while winning a massive majority of 99 of 122 ridings, lost his own seat to the P.Q, and in 1989, Don Getty lost reelection to a Liberal in Edmonton-Whitemud.

It's not unheard of, but it's certainly a rare and strange situation to be in, to lead your party to a majority government but not win a seat for yourself. Nothing a little byelection can't fix, of course, which is what all the people you mentioned did. Major party leaders lose their seats all the time, but rarely when they simultaneously win a majority government. Bourassa was a very unusual situation, for a party to win in a landslide and pick up 57 seats, yet lose the leader's seat. Christy Clark's loss in Vancouver-Point Grey while simultaneously winning a majority wasn't quite so strange, since Vancouver swung left, but the rest of the province did not, even swinging right in some places.

Interestingly, I remember some people throwing around the possibility that in the 2018 Ontario election, the PCs would win a majority while Ford fails to win Etobicoke North. Ostensibly it made sense, considering the PCs finished third with 23% of the vote in that riding in 2014. But I think anyone who knew anything about Toronto politics understood that there wasn't the slightest flicker of a chance that the people of Etobicoke North would elect someone else when Doug Ford was on the ballot.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Interestingly, I remember some people throwing around the possibility that in the 2018 Ontario election, the PCs would win a majority while Ford fails to win Etobicoke North. Ostensibly it made sense, considering the PCs finished third with 23% of the vote in that riding in 2014. But I think anyone who knew anything about Toronto politics understood that there wasn't the slightest flicker of a chance that the people of Etobicoke North would elect someone else when Doug Ford was on the ballot.

Other than those who used projection models in the stupidest way imaginable, I really don't think there were many who were projecting a Ford loss *in tandem with* a PC majority.  More often, it was in tandem w/broader PC squelched hopes, together with how, Doug Ford or no Doug Ford, it's by no stretch of the imagination a "natural" Tory riding, as the continued federal electoral record proves...

I agree that serious analysts weren't predicting a DoFo loss + PC majority situation, but the "people who use projection models in the stupidest way imaginable" make a lot of noise on social media. My point though was that it was the most recent time that I can recall where such predictions were made.