Alberta election 2023

[Benjamin Frank]

The election is still more than a year away but the main parties are already well underway.
https://daveberta.ca/ is a good website to check for Alberta politics (from a center/left of center perspective.)

I was wondering specifically though if there are New Democrats in Alberta who are concerned that, now that they seem to have become the alternative governing party, that their party is being at least somewhat taken over by a lot of more centrist newcomers.

[Benjamin Frank]

Nobody so far has taken up the one part of the comment in my post that I wrote on March 12, on how it seems, at least somewhat, that the NDP is being taken over by more centrist types who haven't had a longstanding connection to the party.

Daveberta wrote this on May 20:

Notley and NDP MLAs have been spending every spare moment in Calgary.

It’s a full-court press.

They know they have to make big gains in the province’s largest city to form government.

And they have some impressive bench strength.

Former city councillor Druh Farrell in Calgary-Bow.

Energy analyst Samir Kayende in Calgary-Elbow.

Sustainable energy expert Nagwan Al-Guneid in Calgary-Glenmore.

Canadian Forces veteran and police commission vice-chair Marilyn North Peigan in Calgary-Klein.

Physician Luanne Metz in Calgary-Varsity.

Calgarians with impressive resumes who could presumably become cabinet ministers on Day 1 of a new Notley government, which is what she will need if her party wins in 2023.

It feels more like a Progressive Conservative lineup than a traditional working-class NDP slate.

https://daveberta.ca/2022/05/ucp-chaos-good-for-notley-ndp/

[Benjamin Frank]

Nobody so far has taken up the one part of the comment in my post that I wrote on March 12, on how it seems, at least somewhat, that the NDP is being taken over by more centrist types who haven't had a longstanding connection to the party.

Daveberta wrote this on May 20:

Notley and NDP MLAs have been spending every spare moment in Calgary.

It’s a full-court press.

They know they have to make big gains in the province’s largest city to form government.

And they have some impressive bench strength.

Former city councillor Druh Farrell in Calgary-Bow.

Energy analyst Samir Kayende in Calgary-Elbow.

Sustainable energy expert Nagwan Al-Guneid in Calgary-Glenmore.

Canadian Forces veteran and police commission vice-chair Marilyn North Peigan in Calgary-Klein.

Physician Luanne Metz in Calgary-Varsity.

Calgarians with impressive resumes who could presumably become cabinet ministers on Day 1 of a new Notley government, which is what she will need if her party wins in 2023.

It feels more like a Progressive Conservative lineup than a traditional working-class NDP slate.

https://daveberta.ca/2022/05/ucp-chaos-good-for-notley-ndp/

Alberta is not a particularly left wing province.  Heck even in BC or Ontario, NDP couldn't win if they were too left wing.  Never mind as main alternative to UCP, they are bound to attract several federal Liberals.  I think its more being pragmatic that most in NDP have number one goal of ousting UCP and if too right wing won't happen.  I would say Notley is a lot like Horgan in terms of progressive but pragmatic.  And Horgan unlike previous NDP leaders in BC has been quite successful.

Well sure, but the question I asked earlier was (more or less) 'if you were a longtime New Democrat in Alberta, how would you feel about these people with (presumbably) no ties to the party winning nominations to become MLAs?"

[Benjamin Frank]

Danielle Smith may end up being the greatest leader the AB NDP never had. Keep in mind that her botched attempt to unite the right prior to the 2015 Alberta election was probably a major reason why the NDP was able to win that year in the first place, and now it seems like she's hell-bent on making the NDP look like the moderate option in Alberta.

That said, the NDP's path isn't quite easy either. The fundamental difference between now and 2015 is that the right is united, so most of rural Alberta (using that loosely to mean not Edmonton or Calgary) isn't going NDP, and there's only one seat within the City of Edmonton that isn't already NDP. Kaycee Madu is therefore probably definitely toast, but that's 1 seat. The NDP needs 20.

Now let's look at the Edmonton suburbs and give the NDP every riding where they were within a 20-point margin in 2019. They pick up Morinville-St. Albert and Sherwood Park. 3/20, 17 to go.

Now for Calgary. There are 9 UCP seats within city limits where the NDP was within 20 points, but I'll give a tenth one (Calgary-Elbow) to them, because the Alberta Party split the NDP vote in 2019. Now we're at 13/20, 7 seats to be picked up in non-metropolitan Alberta.

Banff-Kananaskis and Lethbridge-East flip orange, bringing the NDP to 15 pickups. 48 UCP, 39 NDP, Danielle Smith gets a majority. Now I know, a universal swing like this isn't how elections work, but it does go to illustrate that the path to an NDP victory in Alberta without a divided right is difficult, Danielle Smith notwithstanding.

The swing ridings for the NDP to win a majority are some of the Calgary seats, the other three more outer Edmonton suburbs and Lesser Slave Lake in the North.

[Benjamin Frank]

338Canada has the NDP virtually tied with the UCP in seat count, yet Red Deer South still has 81% probability of going UCP. So yes, there's an outside chance of flipping it and it wouldn't be wise for the NDP to just concede Red Deer, but it really is an outside chance.

Yet I know from following 538 on the US elections that 81% is still "likely" rather than "safe".  So I'd never write off outside chances, particularly w/a contentious leader like Danielle Smith...

Both Red Deer ridings were won in landslides by the UCP in 2019, so it does seem kind of ridiculous to think the NDP could win there in 2023, but the best evidence that it might be possible is that according to Daveberta in the Red Deer South NDP nomination, which featured 3 credible candidates, Barb Miller the NDP MLA from 2015-2019 and a union official, Kyle Johnston a union official, and the winner, Michelle Baer, the Red Deer city solicitor, over 1,000 people voted in the nomination meeting (which is roughly 1/4 of the total who voted NDP in the riding in the 2019 election.)

I don't know what turnout was like in Red Deer North, which also featured a contested nomination between the winner Jaelene Tweedle, a parent school activist who narrowly lost in both 2017 and 2021 for a position on the at large Red Deer school board, and Craig Curtis a retired Red Deer city manager (the top administrative position) who ran for the Red Deer city council in 2021. Interestingly, he received more votes than Tweedle did, but, unlike Tweedle, came nowhere near to winning. Clearly many more people in Red Deer voted for city council than for school board.

[Benjamin Frank]

Per Dave Cournoyer's (Daveberta) the NDP has nominated 58 candidates, or exactly 2/3 of the 87, however they also have announced nomination dates for, I believe, another 11 candidates, and have 3 additional ridings with approved candidates, taking them to 72 of the 87 ridings, with three new recently announced approved candidates

https://twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1582728797694349314
Bounsall and Dale were obviously two of the 11 with announced nomination dates, and this is the third newly approved candidate: Conservationist & author Kevin Van Tighem running for the NDP nomination in Livingstone-Macleod.

In terms of winnable ridings, it seems that the NDP has already nominated or announced candidates in all but Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville. One of the more marginal winnables to be sure, but I'd say more winnable than Livingstone-Macleod, for instance.

Not that I'd say they're winnable, but the more urban northern cities of Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie are laggards for some reason.

Anyway, it does seem to me that the NDP wants all their candidates nominated by the end of the year (or the start of the Holiday season more likely) which would be a full five months before election day.

I think there is no question that late nominations in winnable ridings cost the NDP in the 2018 Ontario election and possibly in the 2019 Federal election (I can't remember.) So, given all the NDP rules around their nominations, this is quite an organizational achievement for the NDP, even if they don't have quite all 87 candidates nominated by the end of the year.

Of course, it's always a matter of trade-offs, as I'm sure seeing Danielle Smith winning the UCP leadership that there are probably a few ridings where the NDP now wishes that a different candidate would have been nominated. I don't know anything specific on this though, it's just the way these things go.

Edit to add: Just to make this clear. As interesting as the drama is with Leela Aheer, my post was entirely about the Alberta NDP and it was not my intent to post that. Since, Dave Cournoyer posted that on the NDP as a subtweet to that tweet on Leela Aheer, I guess it has to come with the subtweet.

[Benjamin Frank]

This is the Nature Conservancy of Canada write up on NDP candidate Kevin Van Tighem in Livingstone-MacLeod:
Kevin Van Tighem was born and raised in Calgary. His family roots in what is now Alberta go back to 1875. He graduated with a degree in plant ecology from the University of Calgary in 1977 and went on to work as a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service. In 1985 Kevin joined Parks Canada and subsequently worked in various national parks before retiring as a park superintendent in 2011. Kevin is the author of fourteen books on wildlife and conservation and writes a regular column ("This Land") in Alberta Views magazine. His most recent books are Heart Waters/Sources of the Bow River and Our Place/Changing the Nature of Alberta.

https://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/what-you-can-do/events/naturetalks/past-speakers/kevin-van-tighem.html

I post this because I had no idea that there was a Canadian Wildlife Service seperate from that of Parks Canada (or that there used to be, anyway.)

[Benjamin Frank]

Danielle Smith has been compared to both Kari Lake and to Liz Truss (here by me, but others have made the comparison.) Now that we know more about her though (where was the Oppo research?) I think the Kari Lake comparisons are more correct.

However, one thing people have all said about her is that 'Danielle Smith is intelligent.' I don't think so, I think she's glib but not intelligent.

There are two examples of this I like to bring up.

1.From the book version of 'Yes, Minister' in the introduction:
"We were grateful to have had a few conversations with Sir Humphrey himself before the advancing years, without in any way impairing his verbal fluency, disengaged the operation of his mind from the content of his speech."

2.Alan Keyes, who is most famous for running against Barack Obama in 2004 for U.S Senator from Illinois after the original Republican candidate dropped out. Alan Keyes also ran for President in 1996. Extremely articulate and often extremely loony.

[Benjamin Frank]

Absolutely wild events in Alberta with Premier Danielle Smith having tried to interfere in the administration of justice and then caught lying about it,and then trying to lie that she ever lied about it. She's suing the CBC for defamation but is also under an ethical investigation.

The problem, I think, is that because Danielle Smith is articulate and can stay on message, that she's regarded as intelligent. She isn't. She's a glib idiot, and she's completely incapable of governing.

Alberta pollster Janet Brown is regarded as the equivalent of Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, and this is her latest Calgary poll:

https://twitter.com/planetjanetyyc/status/1645811646504529921?cxt=HHwWgsDT0Z--jN...
Alberta polls have tended to favor the NDP (even in 2015 when the NDP won), so the numbers may need to be 'adjusted' by a few points.

This poll is based on 1,000 voters and the overall Calgary numbers are 47% NDP, 42% UCP, and Janet Brown projects an 18-8 NDP win in Calgary.

That would get the NDP close to winning with 20 seats in Edmonton. They would need 6 (to get to 44) in the Edmonton suburbs, the smaller cities and the 2 or 3 rural ridings they have support in.

[Benjamin Frank]

Current list of candidates. It really will be a two-horse race with the Alberta Party and Independence Parties presumably not fielding full slates.

https://mobile.twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1645588908531675136

The NDP have two other candidates announced but not yet nominated.

[Benjamin Frank]

In a weird way, it could actually benefit Poilievre and hurt Trudeau is Notley and the NDP win in Alberta. Danielle Smith is a useful foil for the federal Liberals and she is also a constant embarrassment to the federal CPC brand with her constantly saying and doing crazy things that cause "brand contamination". If she eeks out a win she will likely be ridiculously unpopular by the time the next federal election rolls around and many people may be nervous about a Poilievre-Smith "axis of evil". In contrast if the NDP wins, all of that is off the table

There are those, and not just conspiracy theorist types who think the Federal Liberals agree with that and have been trying to help Danielle Smith, whether it was with the 'just transition' or pushing back against Smith's 'Sovereignty Act.'

I don't agree in that helping fossil fuel sector workers to retrain sounds like 'mom and apple pie stuff' and the phrase' just transition' apparently came from the civil service, and it seemed to me Trudeau simply slipped up in pushing back one time on the 'Sovereignty Act' rather than continuing their policy of ignoring it, but it's not hard to see the logic of this 'conspiracy theory.'

[Benjamin Frank]

In a weird way, it could actually benefit Poilievre and hurt Trudeau is Notley and the NDP win in Alberta. Danielle Smith is a useful foil for the federal Liberals and she is also a constant embarrassment to the federal CPC brand with her constantly saying and doing crazy things that cause "brand contamination". If she eeks out a win she will likely be ridiculously unpopular by the time the next federal election rolls around and many people may be nervous about a Poilievre-Smith "axis of evil". In contrast if the NDP wins, all of that is off the table

There are those, and not just conspiracy theorist types who think the Federal Liberals agree with that and have been trying to help Danielle Smith, whether it was with the 'just transition' or pushing back against Smith's 'Sovereignty Act.'

I don't agree in that helping fossil fuel sector workers to retrain sounds like 'mom and apple pie stuff' and the phrase' just transition' apparently came from the civil service, and it seemed to me Trudeau simply slipped up in pushing back one time on the 'Sovereignty Act' rather than continuing their policy of ignoring it, but it's not hard to see the logic of this 'conspiracy theory.'

Seems that, if I was Trudeau, the ideal scenario is a Smith win by 2 or 3 seats?

If Justin Trudeau is primarily concerned with winning the next election, I agree. If Justin Trudeau is primarily concerned with governing I think he wants an NDP win. Not that the NDP wouldn't also fight for 'Alberta Sovereignty' but they're much more aligned on the economy and social services.

[Benjamin Frank]

The NDP candidate (soon to be nominated) in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo is Tanika Chiasson, a Suncor laboratory technician and former UNIFOR national representative and union organizer. It's kind of interesting that many workers in the oil patch are union members but that doesn't help the NDP even come close to winning there.

[Benjamin Frank]

The NDP candidate (soon to be nominated) in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo is Tanika Chiasson, a Suncor laboratory technician and former UNIFOR national representative and union organizer. It's kind of interesting that many workers in the oil patch are union members but that doesn't help the NDP even come close to winning there.

The extent to which unionized workers support the NDP has always been somewhat overstated. An EKOS poll in 2015 found that 23% of unionized Canadians intended to vote NDP in the next federal election, compared 19% of Canadians who intended to vote NDP in general. The percentage of Liberal support was 33% amongst unionized Canadians and 32% amongst Canadians in general and the percentage of Conservative support was 26% amongst unionized Canadians and 34% of Canadians in general. It seems like union members are not a monolith and have views as diverse as any bloc of voters.
https://www.ipolitics.ca/news/polls-theres-a-lot-of-tory-blue-on-union-workers-collars-siekierski

What this likely means is that the NDP needs to expand its base to more than just narrow interest groups such as unions and the insular & estoric hard-left, but it doesn't seem to be willing to do that for ideological reasons.

I don't dispute any of that, but union workers tend to be more supportive of the NDP at the provincial than federal level I think due to labour laws mostly being provincial in Canada. Only federally regulated industries are subject to federal labour laws.

You can look at how the provincial NDP has historically done about 5% or so better than their federal counterparts (25% of the vote or so compared to 20%) even though that province is a similar 3 party system.

Edit to add: on reflection I don't fully agree with that description of the NDP coalition. The NDP is a coalition of union members, (left wing) social activists and academics. Is that any less broad a coalition than the federal Conservative Party which is a coalition of small business owners (though Canadian small business owners aren't as right wing as those in the U.S), self interested conspiratorial types (global warming deniers...), and other aggrieved individuals.

[Benjamin Frank]

The NDP candidate (soon to be nominated) in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo is Tanika Chiasson, a Suncor laboratory technician and former UNIFOR national representative and union organizer. It's kind of interesting that many workers in the oil patch are union members but that doesn't help the NDP even come close to winning there.

The extent to which unionized workers support the NDP has always been somewhat overstated. An EKOS poll in 2015 found that 23% of unionized Canadians intended to vote NDP in the next federal election, compared 19% of Canadians who intended to vote NDP in general. The percentage of Liberal support was 33% amongst unionized Canadians and 32% amongst Canadians in general and the percentage of Conservative support was 26% amongst unionized Canadians and 34% of Canadians in general. It seems like union members are not a monolith and have views as diverse as any bloc of voters.
https://www.ipolitics.ca/news/polls-theres-a-lot-of-tory-blue-on-union-workers-collars-siekierski

What this likely means is that the NDP needs to expand its base to more than just narrow interest groups such as unions and the insular & estoric hard-left, but it doesn't seem to be willing to do that for ideological reasons.

I don't dispute any of that, but union workers tend to be more supportive of the NDP at the provincial than federal level I think due to labour laws mostly being provincial in Canada. Only federally regulated industries are subject to federal labour laws.

You can look at how the provincial NDP has historically done about 5% or so better than their federal counterparts (25% of the vote or so compared to 20%) even though that province is a similar 3 party system.

Edit to add: on reflection I don't fully agree with that description of the NDP coalition. The NDP is a coalition of union members, (left wing) social activists and academics. Is that any less broad a coalition than the federal Conservative Party which is a coalition of small business owners (though Canadian small business owners aren't as right wing as those in the U.S), self interested conspiratorial types (global warming deniers...), and other aggrieved individuals.

IMO, Conservatives have a much larger base in the country. The Prairies, or at least Alberta and Saskatchewan, are consistently CPC voting - you have very few parts of Canada with a similar population that are consistently NDP voting (at the federal level). The Prairies can be assumed to vote for the Tories because of the resource sector.

Conservative voters in Ontario likely vote that way for the reasons you mentioned - small business owners, some people who are self-interested for whatever reasons. Other people that vote CPC in Ontario are suburbanites concerned about budgets and crime and in rural areas in ON and all over the country, gun owners are also a somewhat significant part of the CPC base. The socially conservative vote is a factor as well. In the Atlantic provinces, many Conservative voters vote that way for reasons similar to those in the Prairies (resource sector).

Anyway, the NDP doesn't have as much of a loyal base. The most loyal people that the NDP has are places with high rates of unionization, but that includes Hamilton, Windsor and a few other cities with roughly 500,000 people or fewer. Larger cities like Toronto, Vancouver tend to switch between NDP and Liberal, NDP used to be popular in Quebec roughly a decade ago but not as much anymore.

The NDP needs to increase its base from simply people in communities with high rates of unionization (Hamilton, Windsor, etc al) and swing Lib-NDP voters in Toronto. They need a region of the country they can call their consistent base. As I mentioned, the Alberta NDP is a great example of how this can be done, but the NDP in other provinces are unlikely to reproduce this strategy because they are always expected to be on the left wing of the political spectrum regardless of circumstances or other considerations.

The Federal Liberal Party gets all the support you're referring to at the federal level and a good deal of those who voted P.C in Ontario in 2018 and 2022.

It's hard to see the NDP expanding its base federally as long as the Federal Liberals are there and are the far more enduring brand. If anything, urban NDP ridings federally tend to be trending Liberal and the Northern ridings in Manitoba and Ontaro held by the NDP at the Federal level tend to be trending Liberal or becoming three way races. The remaining NDP base in the Kootenays, in the North West and on Northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia tend to be competitive with the Conservatives.

[Benjamin Frank]

It's hard to see the NDP expanding its base federally as long as the Federal Liberals are there and are the far more enduring brand. If anything, urban NDP ridings federally tend to be trending Liberal and the Northern ridings in Manitoba and Ontaro held by the NDP at the Federal level tend to be trending Liberal or becoming three way races. The remaining NDP base in the Kootenays, in the North West and on Northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia tend to be competitive with the Conservatives.

Are a lot of these really, clearly "trending Liberal", though?  It might even be argued that past federal NDP support (esp. before the Audrey/Alexa 90s drought) was *overrated*, and Lib support *underrated*--that is, the firewall was always there, and the NDP always had that UK Liberal/Lib Dem stigma of being an awkward third leg of a party with a knack for prevailing in weird 3-way circumstances or making left-field advances in byelections.  Like in Toronto, Davenport's now the most Lib-NDP supermarginal riding in the city; but pre-Y2K, it was nuclear ethno-Liberal under Charles Caccia--and Parkdale-High Park, once more of a Lib/Tory swinger, is now likewise Lib-NDP marginal (more generically, the collapse of the PCs and the attendant "Red Tory" base has enhanced such Lib/NDP-race urban impressions).  *Montreal*, of all places, seems to be a place where the NDP's trended promisingly upward even w/o the crutch of Jack-mania--though yes, the Liberal brand in Montreal is notoriously hard to budge (one thing that helps the NDP in Montreal is that as it's chased the CAQ electorate, the Bloc's no longer the "urban left-proxy" option it once was).  And when it comes to Northern Ontario, while much of it is still *held* by the Liberals, it isn't exactly *trending* in that direction--if anything, the trends are more in the *Conservative* direction, and particularly in non-incumbent circumstances more at Liberal than NDP expense (Algoma-Manitoulin, once the political home of Mike Pearson, is now NDP w/Libs a third-party force).

"Trending" is not the same as "digging in" (i.e. "give up, NDP; you've never won, you never will").  Justin's leadership *re-validated* the Liberal option in '15 after a dark decade; but you can't say it snowballed into a trend, and most of the incremental NDP support shed post-2015 tokenly related to loss of incumbent advantage (particularly in post-Orange Crush Quebec).

Returning to the subject matter: it's not that Fort McMurray *couldn't* be NDP-viable, but any such potential in '95 was kneecapped by its being Brian Jean's hometown.  Thus the "anti-PC" impulse had a viable native-son provincial-leader alternative, and the need to swing with the Notleymania flow was deemed redundant...

Regarding the three Greater Vancouver ridings held by the NDP, Jagmeet Singh's riding isn't totally safe NDP. I haven't looked at the riding redistribution and New Westminster is certainly fertile ground for the NDP, union working class, but if it weren't for Peter Julian the Liberals would likely be much more competitive.  Bonita Zarrillo just won in 2021 but it was also competitive.

[Benjamin Frank]

Regarding the three Greater Vancouver ridings held by the NDP, Jagmeet Singh's riding isn't totally safe NDP. I haven't looked at the riding redistribution and New Westminster is certainly fertile ground for the NDP, union working class, but if it weren't for Peter Julian the Liberals would likely be much more competitive.  Bonita Zarrillo just won in 2021 but it was also competitive.

Yet to refer to any of this as "trending" glosses over how a lot of relative party support can depend upon spot circumstances of candidate or leadership.  That is, I wouldn't refer to anything here as "trending" so much as it's something that's been awakened in the Justin era, but isn't necessarily eternal--and this Greater Van vulnerability to the Liberals would have been, a generation or two ago, a vulnerability to the PC/Reform/Alliance/CPC continuum.

Neither of these seats have *ever* been, in and of themselves, precisely "safe NDP".  Tommy Douglas was once defeated in this territory.  And Svend Robinson survived the 90s because he was Svend Robinson; in his absence, his seat would likelier have flipped to Lib or Reform in '93, and stayed there through 2000.

However, *once again* trying to plug back into the discussion here...if a Notley victory isn't necessarily fatal to the federal Libs/Dippers (i.e. not necessarily a "Griesbach-killer"), it's in the same way that, in BC, John Horgan to some degree broke the curse that, in the past, has led voters to turn its back on the federal NDP once its provincial sister is in governing power.  (The '15 federal election came as Alberta voters started to have morning-after regrets about electing the Notley Dippers--but somehow, I can picture a Notley return to power being more Horgan-like than Barrett/Harcourt/Clark/Dosanjih-like.) 

Of course, Alberta's had its own kind of federal "trending" over the years--back in the 80s when Ed Broadbent was topping the polls, I suppose the federal NDP would have used a "Saskatchewan strategy" and looked to rural as well as urban seats as targetable (indeed, the NDP came within a point of winning the 1986 Pembina byelection--basically, Edmonton's N and E rural/exurban collar).  But today, any such strategy would be much more urban-focussed--and more promisingly so than in the optimistic 80s.  (Remember: the predecessor seat to Edmonton-Strathcona saw the PCs triumph over the NDP's Halyna Freeland--Chrystia's mom--by 8 points in '88.)

Ross Harvey won in Edmonton East for the NDP in 1988.

[Benjamin Frank]

I always thought Canada's Greens were more centrist/right learning.  sometimes referred to as Conservatives with Bikes, or Environmentalists Conservatives, but this compass has them the furthest left on social and fiscal issues?  Is that unique to Alberta's Green Party?

No. There were more Conservatives who ride bicycles in the 1990s and early 2000s, but federally especially since Elizabeth May, they don't really exist any more, and not really provincially either.

In the race to replace Elizabeth May, there was one candidate who roughly fit the description - Andrew West, who received 1.47% of the vote (352 votes.)


The leader of the Green Party prior to Elizabeth May, Jim Harris, was more of an example of a Conservative who rides a bicycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harris_(politician)

Andrew Weaver in British Columbia was kind of all over the map politically, and is easily the second most succesful Green Party leader in Canada but his successor Sonia Furstenau is the now dominant left wing Green.

[Benjamin Frank]

Wow, the candidate lists show how badly Alberta's centrist parties have withered away...

The Alberta NDP is the centrist party.

[Benjamin Frank]

Conflicting polls. The Mainstreet poll conducted at the same time (May 9-12) using IVR, has the UCP ahead 50-44%

[Benjamin Frank]

The polling for this election is such a mess lol. I have never heard of "Counsel"

Counsel Public Affairs
https://counselpa.com/

They are a leading strategic communications and lobbying firm and apparently do polling as well.

https://twitter.com/Counselpa/status/1658625899376398339?cxt=HHwWhsC-uffdz4QuAAA...

[Benjamin Frank]

Sounds like Take Back Alberta is prepared to go the full Arizona.

https://pressprogress.ca/take-back-alberta-leaders-are-training-scrutineers-to-infiltrate-campaigns-and-act-as-security-on-voting-day/?fbclid=IwAR07S27p-GeitV5xsmc5JOXMMBdgYKrAN-6ErwceHcoZ-WvGEmZNZkDBYvg

From the article:
“One of the things we’re looking to do is make sure the number of ballots in the boxes matches the number of people that came through,” Pedersen explained in a video posted on Facebook to promote the webinar.

Maybe somebody should tell them that the vote counters at the polling station can't leave until the numbers match up. Not only the ballots cast with the number of people who came to vote, but also the total ballots cast with the vote count.

To be sure, I'm not sure there is always a list to record the number of people who came in to vote, but the poll clerk has to reconcile the number of ballots used to the number of ballots cast.  If these 'scrutiners' try to keep a click count, they'll likely mess up because there are always people going in and out who don't vote, like other scrutineers and people who want to see if they're eligible to vote. This is something the election workers had better be aware off.

This is mindless stupidity.

It started off that most anti vaxxers were on the left and the right especially ridiculed them, but now the right has not only joined in but taken it to an absolute.

It's the same thing with voting machines. These right wingers are absolutist in being unhinged.

Of course, if these 'scrutineers' harrass legitimate voters, they will likely be told to leave, and I'm sure they'll then go on about how it's either a 'conspiracy' or how 'their rights' have been violated.

[Benjamin Frank]

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%

I wonder if all these polling firms are using the same definition of 'Calgary' and 'Edmonton.' Some polling firms just use the city proper (or, I think Edmonton and St. Albert as 'Edmonton.') While others use the Edmonton and Calgary CMA. That can make a fair size difference especially for Calgary where the suburban and exurban areas, though not that many ridings, are heavily Conservative, except for Banff, if that's included in the CMA.

[Benjamin Frank]

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.)

[Benjamin Frank]

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.

You still didn't answer the question on the polls though,

Are 'Calgary' and 'Edmonton' in these polls the city proper, or are they the CMAs?