Alberta Election 2019

[mileslunn]

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%

[mileslunn]

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.

[mileslunn]

NDP upwards trend continuing, Still got a ways to go, but getting there.

Also, the guy who runs tooclosetocall.ca put up his model a few days back

https://www.tooclosetocall.ca/2019/04/the-alberta-2019-model-and-simulator-is.html

Technically an upwards trend relative to previous polls; but when it's a 9-point gap, vs other polls that show something narrower, one wonders whether this'll be yet another case where the left comes temptingly ohsoclose but just couldn't clear that final necessary hump, however much they spin the we-got-the-momentum narrative...

I think the NDP will likely outperform what they got in Ontario and may even outperform what they got in BC percentage wise, but their biggest problem seems to be the right is united behind the UCP and so uniting progressives unlike most provinces is not enough, they need to pull over some soft Tories which to date they have not been able to do.

[mileslunn]

A whole slew of polls today, but all show UCP in lead with as small as 6 points for Pollara to as large as 14 points for Leger.  Most are 8-10 points so UCP definitely favoured, but slight chance of an NDP upset.  Nonetheless the fact it won't be a runaway landslide for the UCP does show that Alberta is not the conservative stronghold many think it is.  Mainstreet has the following seat projections:

UCP 54 seats
NDP 31 seats
Alberta party 1 seat
Liberals 1 seat

[mileslunn]

Mine are as follows.  Usually for whatever reason the governing party tends to slightly outperform polls so I show the NDP a bit on the high side.

UCP 49 seats - 46%
NDP 36 seats - 41%
Alberta Party 1 seat

[mileslunn]

Mine are as follows.  Usually for whatever reason the governing party tends to slightly outperform polls so I show the NDP a bit on the high side.

UCP 49 seats - 46%
NDP 36 seats - 41%
Alberta Party 1 seat

That is Alberta specific.  Note in 2012 Wildrose was more right wing than PCs so not sign of bias towards right but rather governing party.
Is this an Alberta-specific pattern or wider? The PCs of course were the governing party for a long time so it could have been anti-PC bias in the polls.

[mileslunn]

Student vote surprisingly favours UCP and close to my prediction

UCP 49 seats
NDP 35 seats
Alberta party 3 seats

[mileslunn]

Everyone on Twitter was lambasting Forum's last poll because of how off it was compared to everyone else's, but it turned out to be the closest. I really do fear there was some herding going on with the other pollsters. Our internal riding polling was consistent with a 15-20 point lead for the UCP.

Interesting.  I wonder compared to your numbers and general what went wrong.  Looking through the regionals, it looks like the polls were pretty close in Edmonton.  In Calgary they were all over the map and UCP was in line with the most optimistic ones.  It seems though Calgary is the one place the NDP might have outperformed or at least tied 2015 results vote wise, but UCP got the combined PC + WRP vote thereby ensuring they won big as NDP only won Calgary on strong vote splits.  NDP got 62% in Edmonton last time around so not surprised they fall a bit there.

It looks like polls messed up the worse in rest of Alberta which on the seat count front doesn't matter as all showed UCP well ahead, they just had an even bigger blowout, but it did affect topline numbers.  It seems in most elections rural areas is where right tends to most overperform the polls so I wonder if there is a shy element that distrusts pollsters on the right so doesn't respond.  We've seen this problem in other provinces too in rural areas.

Still this was a pretty big miss and only reasons pollsters aren't being raked over is at least they correctly predicted the winner.  Quebec saw a similar miss but at least that could be explained by 19% drop in Anglophone vote turnout thus why Liberals underperformed there.  For whatever reason it seems there is a tendency to underestimate the right.  Maybe age demographics in that millennials lean left, but don't vote as often as older voters?  Or perhaps shy Tory effect?

[mileslunn]

  Do the results in Alberta have a message for the upcoming federal election?

It will make federal-provincial relations even rockier and means Trudeau has fewer allies, but I wouldn't read too much.  For starters Harper got 59.5% in 2015 while Kenney got 55% so Kenney actually underperformed what Tories usually get federally mind you in Alberta Tories usually get about 10% more federally than provincially.  I think since the Tories are expected to win the vast majority, maybe all, seats in Alberta it probably is less meaningful than if in Ontario, Quebec, or BC.  Still if the Tories coast to coast can win in all the areas they are provincially it would mean a majority, but I am not sure this will happen, especially in Quebec where CAQ and Tories may sit in similar spots on political spectrum but also have vast differences too.

[mileslunn]

I don't think it was a 'shy conservative' vote so much as the turnout being quite different from the pool of all voters.  About 1.9 million Albertans voted in this election, which is about 70% of the 2.7 million registered voters.  The 2015 election, with about 1.5 million votes, had a 57% registered voter turnout and that had been the highest turnout in Alberta for a number of elections.

It seems reasonable to conclude that virtually all of these additional 400,000 voters voted United Conservative and that many of the 800,000 registered voters who didn't vote were younger or from more marginal communities.  From a quick look at the riding results, it seems that turnout in Edmonton considerably lagged turnout in the rest of the province (especially in the areas of Edmonton most favorable to the NDP.)

Perhaps a lot of the new conservative votes were ones in 2015 who were sick of the PCs and unsure of Wildrose so just stayed home or could be a lot of conservatives just assumed Alberta would always vote Conservative so didn't bother showing up and the NDP election poured cold water on that idea so they showed up.  if you look at federal numbers, I don't think the UCP vote total is too far off what the federal Tories usually get.

[mileslunn]

Any reason why Lethbridge has flipped from the Klein era.  During Klein's reign it was Lethbridge West that went PC while Lethbridge East went Liberal whereas last night Lethbridge East went solidly UCP while Lethbridge West (unless absentee ballots change things) went NDP.  Any reason for this?  Only I can think of is redistribution moved the university into a different riding or is there some other reason for this?

[mileslunn]

Saskatoon = Calgary, Regina = Edmonton?

Regina=Edmonton largely true although Regina a smaller city but still if you look at results do seem somewhat similar.  Saskatoon is more conservative than Regina, but not as conservative as Calgary which is without question the most conservative city in Canada. 

Anyone know when the updates on the absentee ballots will be?  Will be interesting if any flip.  Based on numbers and closeness I could see the following flipping:

UCP

Sherwood Park
Edmonton Southwest
Banff-Kananaskis
Calgary-Currie
Calgary-Falconbridge
Calgary-Varsity

NDP

Edmonton South
Edmonton West-Henday
Lethbridge West

So if things go NDP's way they could win a total of six seats in Calgary which is not a bad showing in the face of a united right and a good base to work from next time around.  UCP is unlikely to flip the three NDP seats.

On the other hand if UCP can hold the one they have in Edmonton and pick up the other two that would give Edmonton more representation on the government side.  Also I suspect any member elected in Edmonton is almost guaranteed a cabinet post.

Will be interesting to see final vote totals, but pretty sure UCP will exceed combined PC + WRP vote of 52% in 2015.  They would need to get only 28% in the absentee ballots for them to fall below this while 13% to fall below 50% so won't happen.  Likewise no way NDP beats either their 2015 record of 40.6% or falls to third best at 29.2% in 1986, otherwise will be their second best showing in both seats and vote percentage.  Though may if they do well in absentee ballots get their highest absolute vote total as turnout was much higher than 2015 so could get same absolute total even with a lower share of the popular vote.

[mileslunn]

Elections Alberta has updated the results so that there is now only 1 poll per district outstanding.  The UCP gained the most votes but the results have marginally improved for the NDP from 55.2-32.2 to 55.1-32.4%.  From my memory of the results prior to these additions, the UCP gained about 71,000 votes and the NDP about 50,000.  No seats have changed over.  I'm not sure how many votes are still outstanding.  The biggest change in the close ridings is that the UCP added about 1,000 votes to their lead in Banff-Kananaskis.

https://results.elections.ab.ca/wtResultsPGE.htm  

In Edmonton Southwest, the lead is 856 with only around 1,600 votes left so pretty much a near certainty Madu Kaycee wins his seat thus ensuring at least one UCP seat in Edmonton.  Edmonton West-Henday widened to 316 lead so will be interesting what position Kenney gives Madu Kaycee as cabinet minister since he will be only one from Edmonton.

Going through them all, the most likely outcome is probably no change.  Calgary-Falconbridge and Calgary-Currie the NDP only closed by single digits number wise and not sure if enough ballots out to flip.  Lethbridge West so the gap almost cut in half so if any flips, that would be the most likely but still think NDP will hold that.  Sherwood Park and Calgary-Varsity both widened as did Edmonton South so no way those are flipping either.  Banff-Kananaskis saw a big jump as mentioned and numbers actually look more realistic as based on 2015 the initial results looked out of whack with overall swing.  But it is also a quirky riding too in terms of you have in the west around Banff and Canmore a large tourism industry while eastern parts more ranchland so former being fairly progressive latter fairly conservative.

[mileslunn]

Any idea on how "Vote Anywhere" ballots will lean? I have seen idle speculation that they will lean UCP.

Actually the first batch suggest really was a mixed bag but nothing significant.  In BC, they usually favour the NDP, but not sure if that will be the case in Alberta and so far no sign off this.  Advanced polls favoured UCP, but in BC, advanced ones favour BC Liberals.  Actually advanced polls pretty much always tend to favour parties on the right, but up until now BC was the only province doing absentee ballots.

[mileslunn]

There are still 86,000 votes outstanding and it is the special mobile ones to be counted.  Looking at the numbers, NDP is only 22,000 votes shy of what they got in 2015 so they will likely have a higher raw total and when all is said and done, probably the third highest ever in Alberta history only behind off course UCP this time and Alberta PCs in 2001.  UCP will for sure pass the million vote marker.

Of the absentee ballots counted so far the results are 51.6% UCP to 33% NDP so very slight swing to NDP but not much and was far from uniform across ridings.

[mileslunn]

In Calgary-Varsity, Calgary-Currie, Banff-Kananaskis, and Edmonton Southwest, NDP candidates have all conceded defeat so obviously based on outstanding votes they probably don't believe there is a realistic chance of catching up.  So at this point Calgary-Falconbridge, Edmonton West-Henday, and Lethbridge West still outstanding.  Edmonton West-Henday swung towards NDP in absentee ballots so far so trend looks good for them.  Lethbridge West did swing in UCP's favour, but I've heard only 300 ballots left to count and 200 vote gap so seems unlikely they will close it.  Anybody know what the recount threshold is?

[mileslunn]

Final results are in and no changes in seats, 63 seats for UCP, 24 seats for NDP.  It does seem the final ballots did help NDP a bit but overall results only changed slightly.

UCP 54.8%
NDP 32.7%

The NDP though did get more votes total then they did in 2015 and had the third best showing in total votes in Alberta history only behind off course UCP, and Alberta PCs in 2001.

Of the mobile polls counted today the results were as follows.

UCP 46.2%
NDP 38.8%

So actually polls were pretty close to this one, but way off on the others.

[mileslunn]

I would be interested in seeing a map of how UCP did compared to the combined PC + WRP vote in 2015.  Overall they exceeded the combined vote slightly.  It looks like in Rural Alberta especially the northern parts they exceeded it greatly and also did in Edmonton while Calgary got about the same so interesting to see what it visually looks like.

[mileslunn]

For the NDP, if Rachel Notley does decide to step down as leader, I would think the front-running candidates would likely be

From Edmonton: David Eggen or Deron Bilous
From Calgary: Kathleen Ganley or Irfan Sabir

I would also expect Rod Loyola to run with the endorsement of the 'socialist caucus.'

I think Shannon Phillips is probably too isolated as the only member of the caucus not from the Edmonton or Calgary regions, and she also won re-election by a very narrow margin.

What about Joe Ceci?  He was finance minister so pretty high profile.  Sarah Hoffman is another but she unlike Notley came across more as the pitbull so good person to play a lead role in attacks in opposition but not sure if best to lead.

As for Notley running in 2023, I am of two minds.  She suffered a pretty bad defeat and in almost any other province would mean resigning.  It's very rare for a defeated leader to come back and win.  On the other hand the two elections she was leader were NDP's two best showings so real risk the party falls back to its normal single digits with someone else so probably best to stay on for now as the next election is not for another four years so lots of time to see how things unfold and go from there.

[mileslunn]

How about a map of Banff, Lake Louise, Canmore, and Jasper.  Those are fairly touristy towns so wouldn't be surprised if they went NDP even though UCP won the ridings.  Sort of akin of Blaine County in Idaho and Teton County in Wyoming and sometimes Summit County in Utah.  All very red states and surrounding areas deeply Republican but those usually vote Democrat for that reason.

[mileslunn]

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).

[mileslunn]

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.

Sure, but rivers make natural riding boundaries, and natural riding boundaries within cities should be used as much as possible over dividing up neighbourhood clusters.

I would agree with that, but also major streets as opposed to small ones or residential should be used too.  Certainly rivers make a lot of sense for boundaries and even in rural areas in many ways are useful ones as our mountains (not for urban but rural).

[mileslunn]

Yesterday, the legislature met for the first time, with two-term MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills Nathan Cooper elected as Speaker, and Angela Pitt (Airdie-East) and Nick Milliken (Calgary-Currie) as Deputies. Just to make sure there weren't too many Northern Alberta MLAs in higher positions (i.e. more than one)

The UCP have promised a lot but they're in a great position to deliver the change they want. Should be exciting times in Alberta.

While a lot can happen in four years, the UCP should probably govern to get as much done in 4 years but also think in many ways about next 8 years.  There are 41 seats outside two major cities and only in five was NDP even somewhat competitive while you have 6-8 Calgary seats, mostly on South side which are solidly conservative so while shouldn't get too arrogant, they do have a pretty strong blue wall.  NDP sweeping Edmonton, winning a few more in rest of Alberta and winning all of Calgary save the conservative south side would still put them shy of a majority.

I think NDP will someday return to office, but probably need to wait for next redistribution which should be more urban friendly.  Also I think as long as Liberals are in power federally, people will stick with UCP.  I think once the Tories win federally, that will help NDP as people will feel less risk in voting for them since with the federal government perceived as a hostile to Alberta, many want a government who will fight them not work with them.