Alberta election 2023

[Njall]

Does anyone have popular vote for Calgary and Edmonton from the last election (or better yet last two elections)?

From RidingBuilder I can find the following:

Calgary:

2015
NDP: 147,169 (34%)
PC: 136,152 (31%)
WRP: 98,037 (23%)
ALP: 31,171 (7%)
ABP: 14,914 (3%)
GRN: 3,503 (1%)
OTH: 1,689 (0%)

2019
UCP: 295,005 (53%)
NDP: 188,729 (34%)
ABP: 52,729 (10%)
ALP: 10,951 (2%)
GRN: 3,405 (1%)
OTH: 3,942 (1%)


Edmonton:

2015
NDP: 219,154 (65%)
PC: 68,792 (20%)
WRP: 27,931 (8%)
ALP: 18,916 (6%)
ABP: 3,114 (1%)
GRN: 664 (0%)
OTH: 640 (0%)

2019
NDP: 213,546 (53%)
UCP: 140,672 (35%)
ABP: 40,108 (10%)
OTH: 5,928 (1%)
ALP: 3,969 (1%)
GRN: 1,960 (0%)

[Njall]

Comparing with the major centres in 2021 election (Elections Canada website).

CPC + PPC vote:

Calgary  61.6%
Edmonton  56.2%

So 9 point difference between UCP and CPC/PPC vote in Calgary, and 21 points in Edmonton.

The EC numbers are somewhat misleading, especially for Edmonton, as they include some areas outside of the cities proper. Here are the numbers on the same geographies as the provincial numbers I posted yesterday:

Calgary:

2019
CPC: 405,208 (66%)
LPC: 111,341 (18%)
NDP: 60,856 (10%)
GPC: 22,739 (4%)
PPC: 11,424 (2%)
OTH: 4,083 (1%)

2021
CPC: 304,968 (53%)
LPC: 128,173 (22%)
NDP: 95,559 (17%)
PPC: 25,940 (5%)
GPC: 10,113 (2%)
OTH: 5,983 (1%)


Edmonton:

2019
CPC: 231,813 (52%)
LPC: 100,759 (23%)
NDP: 92,733 (21%)
GPC: 10,264 (2%)
PPC: 7,848 (2%)
OTH: 2,015 (0%)

2021
CPC: 160,938 (39%)
NDP: 133,984 (32%)
LPC: 94,886 (23%)
PPC: 22,307 (5%)
GPC: 1,933 (0%)
OTH: 1,700 (0%)

[Njall]

It does seem federally Tories tend to do better in Alberta than provincially so any reason for that as that was case even before you had more crazy ones like Danielle Smith?  Never mind Harper and Scheer were probably more conservative than most Alberta PC leaders and similar to Kenney.

It's a vote for the "party of Alberta" (the CPC).  Provincially people feel more free to choose among parties.

Can confirm. Western alienation is a very real thing for some voters.

[Njall]

Rajan Sawhney, who had previously announced that she would not be contesting her seat of Calgary-North East and would leave the legislature, has instead been adopted as the UCP candidate for Calgary-North West. Unlike her current seat, this new seat isn't necessarily an assured NDP gain—in 2019 the UCP candidate, frontbencher Sonya Savage, won it by 25 points with 9% going to the Alberta Party candidate—so Sawhney could end up in a situation where she's the most prominent member of the opposition benches not aligned with the far right.

It's also worth noting that the UCP did this because Sonya Savage, who had already been renominated in the riding, made a last-minute decision to not run for re-election. Savage had been seen as a close ally of both Kenney and Toews, so make of that what you will. To your other point, if Sawhney is elected she'll have the company of Rebecca Schulz, but that's about it. Schulz represents Calgary-Shaw, which is one of the 6 seats in Calgary (along with Lougheed, Fish Creek, South East, Hays, and West) that are likely to stay UCP, and while she ran to the right of Sawhney in the leadership, she was to the left of Toews and definitely Smith.

In other news, yesterday Smith announced that reporters will no longer be allowed to ask her follow-up questions at news conferences. Her staff are really actively trying to limit the opportunities for her to go off-script and end up in another controversy.

One other thing I'm watching in the lead up to the election that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet is the question of if Drew Barnes will run for re-election in Cypress-Medicine Hat. Barnes is the only former Wildrose MLA elected in the 2012 election to have stayed in the legislature from then through to the present day, and when he was in the UCP he was consistently one of the most outspoken and libertarian-leaning backbenchers. He'd had it out for Kenney ever since Kenney declined to name him to cabinet, and in the middle of the pandemic he was kicked out of the UCP caucus along with Todd Loewen (who is now back in caucus and cabinet) for stoking opposition to Kenney's leadership. Barnes had previously announced that he wouldn't attempt to rejoin caucus and seek the UCP nomination, but he hasn't announced whether he'll run for re-election as an independent. If he does, that could make his riding a sleeper pickup opportunity for the NDP. In the Brooks-Medicine Hat by-election that Smith won, the NDP actually narrowly won the portion of the riding in the city of Medicine Hat. Barnes' riding of Cypress-Medicine Hat, despite its geographic size, is actually much more of an urban seat, with all but 8 polling divisions in the city of Medicine Hat. In a two-way race I think the riding would still lean UCP, but if Barnes runs and splits the vote, the NDP could have a real shot at picking it up.

[Njall]

Alberta 2023 vote compass is out!

LIB: 77%
AP:  77%
GRN: 71%
NDP: 66%
UCP: 28%
WIP: 19%


Of course, in reality I'll be voting for the NDP for the first time in my life.

[Njall]

In the midst of the election, the provincial government has had to declare a state of emergency due to wildfires burning out of control in parts of central and northern Alberta, with at least 25,000 people having been ordered to evacuate so far, including the entire towns of Drayton Valley and Edson. Candidates from both the UCP and NDP in the even ridings affected so far have suspended their campaigns. Most of the ridings are safe UCP rural seats, but the wildfires have also impacted the ridings of Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville and Lesser Slave Lake, which are expected to be competitive.

[Njall]

In other news, the pastor from that leaked phone call with Danielle Smith has registered a new Party called the Alberta Solidarity Movement with a slate of 49 candidates, including candidates in all 26 Calgary ridings.

[Njall]

We got more conflicting polls today. Janet Brown, probably the best pollster in Alberta, has the UCP up 51-40 provincewide and 51-39 in Calgary. Brown says that those numbers in her seat model produces 56 seats for the UCP and 31 for the NDP, which would be a shift of just 7 seats from the last election.

Meanwhile, Counsel Public Affairs has the NDP up 36-29 provincewide and 38-28 in Calgary, with (I think) higher undecided numbers than in other polls.

Also, Mainstreet’s latest numbers have the UCP up 49.4-44.8, and Quito Maggi claims that the regional trends are favouring the UCP.

Also, in non-polling news, the UCP candidate in Lacombe-Ponoka has had a recording emerge of her at a forum last fall going on a transphobic tirade, basically saying the same stuff you hear from hard-right Americans who have bought into conspiracy theories about sex Ed in school teaching kids to think that they’re transgender, etc. A decade ago something like this would’ve been as bad as the lake of fire comment from the 2012 election, but who know how it plays out now. The UCP had previously dropped the former candidate in Lethbridge-West over similar comments, but now the candidate nomination deadline is passed and they seem to be sticking with this one.

[Njall]

Big polling dump today! All figures are among decided and leaning voters:

Ipsos (field dates May 10-13)

Provincewide:
UCP: 48%
NDP: 45%

Calgary:
UCP: 48%
NDP: 44%

Edmonton:
NDP: 61%
UCP: 33%

Rest of Alberta:
UCP: 64%
NDP: 30%


Angus Reid (field dates May 12-16)

Provincewide:
UCP: 51%
NDP: 43%

Calgary:
NDP: 49%
UCP: 46%

Edmonton:
NDP: 56%
UCP: 38%

Rest of Alberta:
UCP: 64%
NDP: 31%


Mainstreet (field dates May 13-16)

Provincewide:
UCP: 49%
NDP: 45%


Abacus (field dates May 15-17)

Provincewide:
NDP: 49%
UCP: 46%

Calgary:
UCP: 51%
NDP: 45%

Edmonton:
NDP: 66%
UCP: 27%

Rest of Alberta:
UCP: 56%
NDP: 39%

[Njall]

The Calgary CMA definitely does not include Banff. It includes Airdire, Chestermere and Cochrane.

The wiki election page counts it as part of the 'Calgary Suburbs'

I would have thought the Calgary CMA would also have included Okotoks (Highwood.)

Nope, by Stats Canada’s definition, the Calgary CMA is Calgary proper, plus Rocky View County and the municipalities and First Nations reserves surrounded by Rocky View Country (Airdrie, Chestermere, Cochrane, etc.). The only parts of Banff-Kananaskis actually in the CMA are the wealthy exurban communities of Springbank and Elbow Valley in Rocky View County, plus the Tsuu T’ina reserve.

The Edmonton CMA actually has much more rural area because it contains all of Leduc County, Parkland County, Strathcona County, and Sturgeon County.

[Njall]

The debate overall seemed to be a wash - Notley supporters probably think that she won it and Smith supporters probably think that Smith won in. The general sentiment from the commentariat is that Smith handled herself better in terms of stage presence, but was also chillingly comfortable with spilling lies again and again (I'm only editorializing a bit).

Also, today's Mainstreet tracker has a 47-47 tie (likely a slight UCP lead before rounding).

[Njall]

We're currently in field with an online poll. Since there's no client, I don't mind blabbing a bit about it (AMA!). Quite a good response over night, considering it's the beginning of a long weekend. Based on unweighted data, it looks like the UCP are up by ~5 points.

Any divulgeable Calgary-specific numbers?

It appears the NDP has a slight lead in Calgary.

A big caveat here is I'm dealing with unweighted data, so I'm extrapolating based on who respondents indicated they voted for in the last federal and provincial elections.

If you have UCP+5 provincewide and NDP slightly up in Calgary, would it be safe to assume that the UCP lead is mainly coming from wide margins in the areas outside of the two major cities? And do you have insights into any differences between the small cities (primarily Lethbridge/Red Deer) and the rest of the "Rest of Alberta"?

[Njall]

Today's Mainstreet tracker has the UCP lead down to 1.2%: 47.1-45.9.

[Njall]

To the extent the left has gained ground in Calgary, it's happening in the northeast, and that's for different reasons.

such as?

In the federal Calgary Skyview riding, under current boundaries, 41% of the population is south asian, and only 21% is white. So that already shifts the riding significantly to the left of Calgary at large, where the white population is about two-thirds. Plus, my understanding is that most of this population is very recent immigrants compared to somewhere like Vancouver or the GTA with more established communities, and generally the more recent immigrants are, the more they lean left. Under the new redistributed ridings, Calgary Skyview gets whiter and more Conservative but the new Calgary McKnight gets even more ethnic, and seems like a lock for the Liberals. A safe Liberal seat in the suburbs in a city where you can't even gerrymander the Liberals a safe seat downtown.

Although there's clearly an "Alberta effect" on them too, considering how strongly Calgary Skyview voted Conservative in 2019 despite Scheer doing noticeably worse than Harper with similar populations in ON and BC.

Northeast Calgary is a very interesting place politically. This is particularly true in the provincial ridings of Calgary-Bhullar-McCall and Calgary-Falconridge (roughly the same area as the new federal Calgary McKnight riding), and to a lesser extent in the provincial Calgary-North East and Calgary-Cross ridings. A lot of political organizing in that area happens through different ethnocultural and religious groups, and there's a lot of informal influence and interest-trading that goes on. I've found that residents of Northeast Calgary, particularly those from organized immigrant/minority communities, are much more likely than average Calgarians to volunteer politically, but are simultaneously much less partisan than average - it's not uncommon to see houses sporting lawn signs from 3 or more parties during elections, and voters will join multiple parties to vote in nomination and leadership elections (in part because these are the only kinds of elections where non-citizen permanent residents are allowed to vote). As an illustration, I distinctly remember how in the 2015 provincial election, the 6-candidate PC nomination race in Calgary-McCall saw over 5,000 votes cast, while in the general election, the PC candidate only got about 2,300 votes. Voters see things much more through lenses of patronage and personal/social connections to politicians, as opposed to through lenses of ideology or partisanship.

Anyways, that is all to say that apparent party strength in Northeast Calgary is more indicative of candidate quality and the success of local party organizers than anything to do with ideology. The choice of a candidate matters a lot more than in other ridings - the candidate needs to be known in and connected to the local community. As an example, the provincial Liberals weren't competitive in Calgary-McCall until Darshan Kang came along in 2004 and nearly doubled their vote share, before winning the seat in 2008. Federally, the Liberals flipped Calgary Skyview in 2015 with Kang as their candidate. They likely would have lost it in 2019 regardless, but they completely wrote it off by nominating Nirmala Naidoo, who's not from the Northeast. In 2021, they won it back in-part by nominating George Chahal, a lifelong Northeast resident who had had the organizing chops to win municipally in 2017.

Elections and political sentiments in Northeast Calgary can also turn based on hyperlocal issues. There were two major things that soured a lot of Northeast residents on Jason Kenney and the UCP. First, there was a major hailstorm a few years ago that caused over a billion dollars of damage to residents' houses, cars. etc., and to the extent that the provincial government provided any assistance, it was seen as too little and too late. Second, during the height of the pandemic, Jason Kenney had made comments that were basically seen as blaming a lot of the spread of covid on minority communities in the Northeast, when this area actually had one of the highest vaccination rates in the province. His comments were also tone-deaf in the sense that any disproportionate spread of covid in the Northeast was not due to factors that residents there could control - being an area with a concentration of recent immigrants, residents there much more commonly live in larger multigenerational households than elsewhere in Calgary, and are much more likely to work lower-wage jobs that were designated as essential (service jobs, taxi/bus drivers, meatpacking plant workers, etc.) than the average Calgarian.

[Njall]

The UCP seems to have gained a few points in the polls over the last few days. Mainstreet now has the UCP up 50-44 (although Twitter comments from Mainstreet subscribers suggest that they still have the NDP ahead in Calgary) and the latest Abacus has the UCP up 51-47.

[Njall]

Anyway, if I had to think of a type of voter who wouldn't want to admit that they would vote for a wacky populist like Smith, but will still vote Conservative, it's a university-educated Calgary suburbanite. That might help the UCP hang on to ridings like Calgary-North West, -Bow, -Acadia, etc which are the key battlegrounds of this election.

These theories about certain types of voters being "shy about admitting they would vote for so-and-so" seem very dated to me. It made some sense 10 years ago and further back when most election polling was done by phone with live interviewers. But nowadays very very little polling is done by that method. The polls we see in Alberta are either IVR (in which case you are just keying in a number in response to a computer voice) or you are doing an online survey in which case you just click a box. There is zero interaction with a human being who one could possibly be shy or embarrassed in front of.

There may well be valid reasons why polls might underestimate UCP support - but i don't buy the idea that people embarrassed to tell a computer who they are voting for.

There may be people who are unwilling to tell a pollster who they are voting for generally - but I'd expect the profile to be different from the one described above and closer to the stereotypical anti-system right-wing voter, who are going to be concentrated in rural and exurban areas. I do think a fairly significant degree of UCP underpolling could be underpolling in "Rest of Alberta", where the regional breakdowns seem a little weak for the UCP/strong for the NDP compared to expectations (while the NDP is only seriously competitive in a few seats there so underpolling of the UCP there is largely irrelevant to the final result, seats-wise). That would be good news for the NDP-loses-the-popular-vote-but-wins-most-seats scenario.

For whatever it’s worth, Quito Maggi from Mainstreet is (as of this evening) calling an NDP majority government despite his provincewide polls having the UCP up by a few points. He seems confident that the NDP have what they need in Calgary while the UCP are going to run up their margins in the rurals.

Granted, this is the same pollster who was confident that Bill Smith would win the 2017 mayoral race and cussed me (and many others) out on Twitter for questioning his methodology. So who really knows.

[Njall]

We have some more new polling! Janet Brown has a new poll for the CBC that still has the UCP ahead provincewide and in Calgary, but by narrower margins than her last poll. She now has the UCP up by 8 points (52-44) provincewide, compared to 11 points in her last poll, and has the UCP up by 3 points (49-46) in Calgary, compared to 12 points in her last poll. It's worth mentioning that the CBC columnist notes that the poll has some weird cross tab results, namely having the UCP and NDP tied amongst female voters and having the UCP leading widely amongst 18-24 year olds, both of which fly right in the face of conventional wisdom.

Also, ThinkHQ has released a poll specifically of Calgary. They have the NDP leading by 6 points in Calgary (49-43), with large NDP leads in the Northeast and Northwest, but slight UCP leads in the Southeast and Southwest. They also break down the results by neighbourhood type, showing the NDP and UCP tied in both new suburbs and older established communities, while the NDP leads 60-35 in the inner city.

[Njall]

Also, ThinkHQ has released a poll specifically of Calgary. They have the NDP leading by 3 points in Calgary (49-46), with large NDP leads in the Northeast and Northwest, but slight UCP leads in the Southeast and Southwest. They also break down the results by neighbourhood type, showing the NDP and UCP tied in both new suburbs and older established communities, while the NDP leads 60-35 in the inner city.

The ThinkHQ Calgary poll is a 6-point NDP lead of 49-43, not a 3-point lead of 49-46.

Whoops, corrected that.

Also, today's Mainstreet tracker is 48.4% UCP to 46.3% NDP.

[Njall]

I know Alberta is a conservative province, but the thought of Danielle Smith winning a mandate for herself is rather terrifying.

How many ridings do the NDP likely need to win outside of Edmonton and Calgary? It seems like the main ones are in Lethbridge and Red Deer. Medicine Hat seems to be very strangely split.

20 Edmonton proper ridings + St. Albert, Sherwood Park, & Morinville-St. Albert + Lethbridge (x2) + Banff-Kananaskis + ≥18 Calgary ridings + mayybe Lesser Slave Lake (but unlikely). A RD seat or Cyp-MH would be seats in the 50s; tall order.

Basically this. I’m more bullish on Lesser Slave Lake than the average prognosticator - it’s a riding with a small population, so it’s more open to retail politics, and it’s over 50% indigenous by population.

I would also add that the NDP is in contention for other seats in the “Edmonton donut” (Strathcona-Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove-Stony Plain, and Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville). Any of those that they win reduces their dependency on Calgary or the small cities.

[Njall]

Are there less First Nations in rural northern alberta compared to Sask and Manitoba?

Yes, although I’d probably phrase it as that there are more non-indigenous people in northern Alberta than Sask or Manitoba. The oil and gas industry has brought a lot of people north, but even historically, the land in northern Alberta, especially the northwest, has been much more suitable for farming and ranching than in the other prairie provinces. Remember that both Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie have populations of around 70,000 just in the cities themselves.

Lesser Slave Lake is the closest equivalent demographically to what Sask and Manitoba have in their far northern ridings. Because it has First Nations communities and is very sparsely populated, it’s allowed to have a population deviation of up to -50% from the provincial average, so it has about 22-25K residents, around 50-55% of whom are indigenous. It contains several First Nations reserves as well as four (I think) Métis Settlements (which are a unique thing in Alberta and aren’t recognized federally, but resulted from a decision many decades ago for the province to basically establish reserves for Métis people - it didn’t really end up working but there are still eight Métis settlements in AB with about 5,000 combined residents).

[Njall]

https://twitter.com/338Canada/status/1662826107949703170

A couple other interesting data points from that poll:

When analyzing the responses by 2021 federal vote, the Alberta NDP unsurprisingly has the votes of about 95% of federal NDP and Liberal voters, but they're also getting the support of 26% of federal Conservative voters.

They also asked about respondents' vote preferences if Smith wasn't UCP leader. The UCP-NDP result moves from 49-48 to 55-38 (and the Alberta Party vote share increases from 1% to 6%).

[Njall]

Mainstreet's final daily tracker is 49.8% UCP to 47.8% NDP.

Even if they lose tomorrow, the NDP are going to get their highest vote share ever, even more than in 2015.

[Njall]

The fact that there are two Calgary seats where exactly one vote was counted right now, both of them for the UCP.

three more seats in calgary are now like this, apparently they're special ballots?

They're not exactly special ballots, but Elections Alberta allows voters to vote anywhere from any polling station in the province during advance votes. So every time one of those advance polls dumps (like the Jasper advance poll in West Yellowhead that already reported), it sends a handful of votes out to other ridings.

[Njall]

I wouldn't be surprised to see the seat margin narrow to more of like a 48-39 type state (it's 52-35 now) as the evening goes on, but it's definitely looking like a UCP majority, albeit not an overwhelming one.

[Njall]

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.