Alberta Election 2019

[Njall]

Looks like Mainstreet has the NDP leading in both Edmonton and Calgary: Alberta is looking more and more like BC; NDP (unified left) vs UCP (unified right).

Edmonton
NDP - 46.4%
UCP - 37.8%
AP - 7.3%
FCP - 3.9%
Green - 2.4%
ALP - 2.2%

Calgary
NDP - 45%
UCP - 43.9%
AP - 3.9%
ALP - 3.9%
FCP - 1.6%
Green - 1.6%

Rest of Alberta
UCP - 65%
NDP - 23.3%
AP - 5.9%
FCP - 2.8%
ALP - 2%

I presume someone here runs leantossup.ca - how does this poll look through the lens of your model?

I can imagine that in Calgary, the NDP will run up their margins in the inner seats (Buffalo, Mountain View, Varsity, Klein, Currie), and the UCP will run up their margins in the Western suburbs (especially South of the Bow, but also in the North-West). The South-East will probably also go UCP, but less strongly so, and then the North-East goes NDP?

Edit: Have any of our number mapped Nenshi's latest victory? I think I did the previous one.

I made this map a while ago. Purple is Nenshi (obviously), blue is Bill Smith.

[Njall]

So the final election results are:

NDP: 44
UCP: 42
AP: 1

What are the 44 NDP ridings?

I think you'd have to start with the 20 city of Edmonton ridings and the two Edmonton 'inner' suburbs of St. Albert and Sherwood Park.  That's half way there.  What are the rest?

My rough list is as follows (grouped roughly geographically as opposed to by margins):

23. Calgary-Buffalo
24. Calgary-Mountain View
25. Calgary-Currie
26. Calgary-Varsity
27. Calgary-Klein
28. Calgary-Bow
29. Calgary-East
30. Calgary-Cross
31. Calgary-Falconridge
32. Calgary-McCall
33. Lethbridge-West
34. Lethbridge-East
35. Morinville-St. Albert
36. Strathcona-Sherwood Park
37. Leduc-Beaumont
38. Spruce Grove-Stony Plain
39. Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville
40. Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin
41. Lesser Slave Lake
42. Peace River

For seats 43 and 44 (and 45, if you want a stable majority including the Speaker), it'd have to be some combination of Banff-Kananaskis, Grande Prairie, Central Peace-Notley, Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland, one of (or both) Red Deer seats, and/or another Calgary seat.

[Njall]

If the NDP manages to win reelection, do we think the UCP survives, or does it collapse back into its constituent parts?

To be honest, I think that too many of the leading folks from the legacy parties have already left the UCP and made their home in the Alberta Party, or one of the fringe right wing parties like the Freedom Conservatives or the Alberta Advantage Party. The UCP is now largely led by and made up of people from Jason Kenney's personal machine, as well as transplants from the federal Conservative Party. So I think it stays together as an entity. That said, there isn't really a go-to leader in the event that Kenney loses and steps down from the leadership, so it will be very interesting to see who would end up stepping up to take over.

[Njall]

Janet Brown Opinion research shows UCP with a 19 point lead.  It is a CATI which is what Nanos uses who has a good track record, but since it is out of whack with other pollsters I tend to think it is a bit closer, but would be nice if more polls were in the field.  Numbers in Edmonton and rest of Alberta are inline with other pollsters, main difference is in Calgary they show UCP solidly ahead rather than a competitive race.  Also CATI might skew towards older voters as all polls show UCP well ahead amongst older voters but NDP ahead amongst millennials so perhaps that is part of it.  Indeed millennial turnout will be key.  If they show up in droves it should be competitive and Notley might even win, but if they don't I expect Kenney to coast to a pretty easy victory.

UCP 53%
NDP 34%
Alberta Party 8%
Liberals 4%

I think turnout generally will be key... Turnout is frequently low in Alberta, I suspect because there are so few ridings that could go either way.  A by-product of this string of close polling results could be that it motivates suburban conservatives to go and vote because the result is in doubt.

Prior to 2015, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion it would be a conservative landslide thus why few bothered to show up.  I think since Kenney is more right wing and scares progressives more than past PC leaders, progressives will be motivated to show up while with conservatives hating Notley and even hating Trudeau more (who they think she is too cozy with) they will be motivated to show up as well.  It really comes down to do millennials show up as the NDP absolutely needs that to be even competitive.  Also the small numbers voting for Liberals and Alberta Party, can either win them over as neither can win much but they could play spoiler in some close ridings.

It’s worth noting that even in the orange wave of 2015, turnout only got to 54%. Even the turnout in our (Calgary’s) municipal election got higher than that in the Nenshi-Smith faceoff.

[Njall]

If the Alberta Party were to break through and get say, 5 seats, which would they be? I assume the seats held by Clark and Fraser would be two, plus Edmonton-McClung, but where else do they have any chance.

I presume if the Liberals were to get 5 seats it would be the 5 they had prior to 2015.

This is a bit of a crapshoot, but some ABP potentials:

• Calgary-Mountain View: Angela Kokott (pretty well-known former broadcaster) is the candidate
• Peace River: Dakota House (indigenous actor, known for his role on CBC's North of 60) is the candidate in this northern, 27% indigenous riding
• Calgary-McCall
• Calgary-East
• Calgary-Currie
• Edmonton-Castle Downs
• Edmonton-Riverview
• Edmonton-Ellerslie

The latter six are ridings where the ABP candidates have been quite active and have been featured a fair bit in social media from the central party. As anecdotal as this is, I drove through parts of McCall and East yesterday and the ABP candidates were holding their own in the private property lawn sign game. Given the present state of the race I don't necessarily think any of them will win, but in the event of a very random ABP breakthrough, the candidates in these ridings are the sort who I think could win.


Regarding the Liberals, it would be very unlikely that they would hold the same 5-seat combination that they did in 2015. Calgary-Mountain View, and possibly Calgary-McCall (but even that's an outside shot) would be the only seats of those 5 that I could see them holding. Of the others, Edmonton-City Centre doesn't even have a Liberal candidate. Edmonton-West Henday (rough successor to Meadowlark) is too much of an NDP-UCP race, and the Liberals really only won that in 2012 (barely) because their Leader was the candidate there. And Calgary-Buffalo has been made into the closest thing to an NDP stronghold in Calgary, and are running their finance minister there.

As sad as it is, I honestly can't think of any Liberal candidates who have a high enough profile to win, aside from Khan himself.

[Njall]

If the Alberta Party were to break through and get say, 5 seats, which would they be? I assume the seats held by Clark and Fraser would be two, plus Edmonton-McClung, but where else do they have any chance?

I presume if the Liberals were to get 5 seats it would be the 5 they had prior to 2015.

This is a bit of a crapshoot, but some ABP potentials:

• Calgary-Mountain View: Angela Kokott (pretty well-known former broadcaster) is the candidate
• Peace River: Dakota House (indigenous actor, known for his role on CBC's North of 60) is the candidate in this northern, 27% indigenous riding
• Calgary-McCall
• Calgary-East
• Calgary-Currie
• Edmonton-Castle Downs
• Edmonton-Riverview
• Edmonton-Ellerslie

The latter six are ridings where the ABP candidates have been quite active and have been featured a fair bit in social media from the central party. As anecdotal as this is, I drove through parts of McCall and East yesterday and the ABP candidates were holding their own in the private property lawn sign game. Given the present state of the race I don't necessarily think any of them will win, but in the event of a very random ABP breakthrough, the candidates in these ridings are the sort who I think could win.


Regarding the Liberals, it would be very unlikely that they would hold the same 5-seat combination that they did in 2015. Calgary-Mountain View, and possibly Calgary-McCall (but even that's an outside shot) would be the only seats of those 5 that I could see them holding. Of the others, Edmonton-City Centre doesn't even have a Liberal candidate. Edmonton-West Henday (rough successor to Meadowlark) is too much of an NDP-UCP race, and the Liberals really only won that in 2012 (barely) because their Leader was the candidate there. And Calgary-Buffalo has been made into the closest thing to an NDP stronghold in Calgary, and are running their finance minister there.

As sad as it is, I honestly can't think of any Liberal candidates who have a high enough profile to win, aside from Khan himself.

I don't think any of those you mentioned are likely to go AP. I'm hoping that Stephen Mandel can pull it off, but if he does it will be him and Clark.
I suspect David Khan is the only candidate who could win, and even then it's against the current Buffalo MLA. In Buffalo itself I suspect some Liberals will rally behind Joe Ceci.

Yeah, like I said I don't the ABP will actually win those ones, but if they were to surge in support and win 5, it's possible some on that list could be amongst the 5.

[Njall]

New polls!

Ipsos:

UCP: 47%
NDP: 39%
Alberta: 10%
Liberal: 2%


ThinkHQ:

UCP: 46%
NDP: 40%
Alberta: 8%
Liberal: 2%

[Njall]

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.

[Njall]

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.

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?

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.

[Njall]

I haven't been following this recently and I just realized the election is in less than a week, it looks like the NDP are surging in the polls. Could they even win, or a UCP victory still a sure thing?

There’s a mild chance the NDP could win. As in, 1 in 10 chance. The polls are tightening, but as far as I’m concerned, that impacts how big the opposition to the UCP is.

[Njall]

Another 136,000 Albertans voted yesterday, including 50,000 voting outside their district. Advance poll turnout this election has, in two days, surpassed the 4-day total from last election.

[Njall]

Momentum is still strong at the advance polls. 127,000 voted yesterday, bringing the to-date total to 403,000.

[Njall]

I haven't been following this recently and I just realized the election is in less than a week, it looks like the NDP are surging in the polls. Could they even win, or a UCP victory still a sure thing?

There’s a mild chance the NDP could win. As in, 1 in 10 chance. The polls are tightening, but as far as I’m concerned, that impacts how big the opposition to the UCP is.

How are you voting Njall?

Alberta Party, although I would have voted NDP in a riding with a close UCP-NDP race. I currently live in an Edmonton riding that should be a shoo-in for the NDP and I really like my ABP candidate, so I can vote for him without worrying about accidentally electing a UCP MLA.

[Njall]

Nanos is out:
UCP: 44%
NDP: 36%
ABP: 12%
LIB: 3%

Mainstreet will release their final public poll tomorrow.

Also, a total of 696,000 Albertans ended up voting in the advance polls. This is up from 235,000 in 2015, and represents about 47% of the number of total voters from 2015.

[Njall]

My rough prediction, FWIW:
UCP - 51 seats, 48%
NDP - 35 seats, 41%
ABP - 1 seat, 8%
Others - 0 seats, 3%

[Njall]

And yeah, it doesn't make sense that the Montgomery neighbourhood is in Bow and not Varsity.

Maybe mild "historical continuity" sense in that Montgomery and Bowness were something like twin Calgary satellites prior to being annexed by Calgary in 1963-4...

The boundary looks weird because it crosses the river, but Bowness and Montgomery are actually very similar communities due to their similar patterns of development as satellite communities, and their demographics (and voting behaviours). They also share a main street (Bowness Road) which seamlessly connects them and actually makes them appear to be parts of the same community when you drive through them.

No surprise here.  It looks like Cochrane went UCP but it is in Airdrie-Cochrane not Banff-Kananaskis.  It looks like there most of the towns went NDP as did Indian reserves and it was more the ranchland areas that UCP won and won big.  That might explain why on election night it looked close, but absentee heavily favoured UCP as perhaps many of the ranchers voted here who would have heavily voted UCP.  Other possibility is a lot of the developers in Banff voted in this and they probably unlike many of the service workers went UCP whereas most service workers in Banff probably went NDP.  Probably the fact those towns have a lot of millennials helped the NDP, but also many in the service industry.  My guess is many of those got a raise in wages as they would have benefited most from higher minimum wage so probably favour the party who raised it, not the party who opposed the raises although UCP won't rollback minimum wage but have said open to doing so for tipping businesses (Not working in this industry, I would be interested if higher minimum wage meant people tipped less).

The area between the Stoney Nation and Calgary isn’t ranchland (mostly), it’s actually primarily populated by very wealthy families living on acreages who commute into Calgary for work and/or school. If you know (or look up) the communities of Springbank and Elbow Valley, you’ll know/see what I mean. I would actually guess that, combined with the community of Priddis (south of the Tsuu T’ina Nation), over 10,000 very wealthy folks live in that area. Adding those wealthy communities after Cochrane was redistricted out was how the riding was able to continue to exist, and under the distribution of 2015 votes to new boundaries, it actually made the riding more conservative. My explanation for why the out of ED advance votes were so heavily UCP was that the many of the wealthy folks (and their kids; student vote results incicate kids there vote almost as conservative as their parents) voted in advance polls at or near their work or school locations in Calgary.