Alberta Election 2019

[Hatman 🍁]

Fildebrandt is starting his own party 🤣

[Hatman 🍁]

So the Ottawa boy supports Alberta separatism now eh.

[Hatman 🍁]

I can't seem to find the redistributed results from 2015, can anyone pass it along to me?

[Hatman 🍁]

For some reason it baffles me that there's a riding in Canada with a whopping 86% minority electorate. Or that there are 8 districts where they are a majority!

Our big cities aren't that White.

[Hatman 🍁]

Hispanics are considered visible minorities on the Canadian Census (if they select Latin American).

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[Hatman 🍁]

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

Well, it was mostly online so not hard to look them up if they wanted to. And we had done another poll for them a few weeks before.

[Hatman 🍁]

That much is true. 

[Hatman 🍁]

looks like that just like Ontario, there is a large mode affect in polling (excluding Mainstreet). Phone surveys show a large UCP lead, online surveys show a tighter race.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[Hatman 🍁]

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?

Nothing official. We'll see how much time I have tomorrow.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

Is Khan competitive in Mountainview or is he well behind?

Well, more competitive than any other Liberal (I think), but I think he's well behind. 

Personally, I think he would've had a better shot had he run in Calgary-McCall.

[Hatman 🍁]

there's always that chance that the polling error Mainstreet saw in the Calgary mayoral election plays out in this election too, and the NDP ends up winning most of the seats in Calgary. Not sure how likely that is though, as their crosstabs definitely look more reasonable in this election.

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[Hatman 🍁]

He should never have stepped down as leader. What was his plan, that they would double their seats every election by changing leaders  like Quebec solidaire?

[Hatman 🍁]

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?

I think for Mainstreet, they were trying to over-correct for their Calgary blunder. I mean, the had the NDP and UCP neck and neck.

[Hatman 🍁]

[Hatman 🍁]

[Hatman 🍁]

it's not like anyone else is going to do any better than Notley. She should stay for as long as she wants.

[Hatman 🍁]

Polls with more than 100% turnout are usually explained by people registering to vote on election day.

Anyway, looking at the Calgary map, one could easily gerrymander the city for 1-2 more NDP ridings, with a nicer looking map.

[Hatman 🍁]

I would move McCall and Falconridge  up, as I think it makes more sense to have the Skyview ranch area in McCall.

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

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[Hatman 🍁]

Alberta's demos (and probably culture too) have to change OR another split in the right wing need to happen first before the NDP wins again. And the fact that Albertans know the NDP can win will make strategic voting on the right more likely to happen, making a perfect right wing split almost impossible anyway.