Alberta election 2023

[DL]

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?"

The thing to keep in mind is that outside of downtown Edmonton there really are not very many "longtime New Democrats" in Alberta. Before Notley's shock win in 2015 the NDP was a tiny fringe party in Alberta with about 5,000 card carrying members in the whole province most of whom were public service employees in downtown Edmonton. In Calgary the NDP was literally non-existent and many MLAs elected in Calgary in 2015 were just "names on the ballot". Virtually everyone involved with the Alberta NDP these days in Calgary is someone with very recent ties to the party. Many may have formerly been Liberals or were non-partisan progressives. So this is really no big deal.

[DL]

That poll was taken in the couple of says after Smith won the UCP leadership during what passes for a honeymoon. She has no where to go but down from here on in. Her crazy comments about unvaccinated people being persecuted more than any other group in her life will hurt as will revelations about her pro-Putin views on Ukraine - especially given Alberta's HUGE Ukrainian-Canadian population

[DL]

Pales in comparison to Canada though.  US voting is much more demographically-driven.

US didn't have a single city as large as Calgary or Edmonton vote GOP.  Now true Edmonton Tories federally won more on splits as more voted left than right but in Calgary majority voted Tory federally.  In 2016, Trump did win Maricopa and Duval counties although Phoenix and Jacksonville I believe went for Hillary Clinton, latter just barely.  At same time US cities don't tend to extend all the way out to countryside and big reason Tulsa and Oklahoma City were competitive for GOP is like Calgary & Edmonton extend right out to countryside unlike most US cities.  Areas with urban types densites vote Democrat while those more suburban in nature go GOP.  Edmonton is like that, but in Calgary, Tories even win in central cores.  London is only other place in Anglosphere where that happens and even that probably changes next election.  London as a whole votes Labour, but the very central parts which are quite rich still vote Conservative.

Don’t the Nationals in New Zealand and Liberals in Australia still win upscale urban seats?

[DL]

I think the main concern is that the NDP can probably win the popular vote by 5% and still be relegated to opposition to a UCP Majority.

I'm not so sure about that - the UCP will likely win a lot of rural seats with North Korean-style margins and waste a lot of votes. In the end it will all come down to Calgary.

[DL]

That seems to be the conventional wisdom, although the UCP does have room to fall in Edmonton. It's likely that the suburban Edmonton ridings that went NDP+10-15 go NDP+25-30 this time around, leading to a fair number of wasted votes. But the NDP knows that, they've been aggressively targeting Calgary because they know they can afford to take Edmonton for granted.

Keep in mind that while there is only one UCP seat in Edmonton that the NDP could pick up if their vote increases that much - there are several more seats (maybe 4 or 5) in the exurban "donut" around Edmonton that could also be NDP targets if they sweep the so-called Capital Region

[DL]

I kinda wish the south side of Calgary was split into "south central" and "deep south" instead of southeast and southwest...it would make more sense politically to see more of an inner 'burbs vs outer 'burbs split

[DL]

Calgary Question
What makes the North of the city much more NDP/Progressive friendly then the South? Is it income? ethnic mix? is there a historical "working class" area of the city?

Parts of north Calgary - especially the northeast are kind of similar to places like Brampton or Surrey - lots of new Canadians, lower income. I think the suburbs in the "deep south" are more upscale and more like Oakville or Newmarket.

[DL]

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

[DL]

Mainstreet's tracker today has it down to a margin or 1.7%

UCP 48%
NDP 46.3

and the NDP leads in Calgary

[DL]

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.

Do you weight by past vote?

[DL]

At one time there was speculation that the NDP could win the popular vote and lose the election due to "wasted votes" in Edmonton. Now I think that the reverse would be more likely. I could see the UCP win the popular vote by as much as 3 or 4 points and have the NDP win due to lots of wasted UCP votes in rural Alberta. Similarly in Manitoba, a tied popular vote almost invariably means an NDP win because the PCs tend to waste so many votes in rural Manitoba.

[DL]

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.

[DL]

One thing that strikes me about the results is that the NDP vote is actually very efficient. getting 38 seats while losing the popular vote by almost 9% is a good showing and points to a lot of wasted UCP votes in rural ridings where they run up these North Korean like margins. If this sort of pattern holds four years from now I think its safe to say that the NDP could win easily win more seats than the UCP if they came within 4 or 5 percent in the popular vote (i.e., if the popular vote had been 50-46 rather than 52.5-44 - the NDP likely would have won 44-45 seats). And over the coming years the demographic shifts in Alberta will continue. Old people will die off, younger people will enter the electorate. Calgary and Edmonton will get bigger and rural Alberta will stagnate.

Its impossible to predict what the next four years will bring but it has already been pointed out that oil has dropped below $70/barrel and that already through Danielle Smith's budget assumptions out the window. The war in Ukraine will eventually end and that could quickly kick the price of oil back below $50/barrel and then Alberta is back in a 2015 style revenue collapse... 

[DL]

For what it's worth, there have been times when commodity prices were low but Alberta's economy still came out strong. For example, commodity prices were low in the 1990s but Alberta had the highest economic growth in Canada and even achieved a balanced budget. I think it depends on how the current UCP government would handle a future economic downturn that will make the difference.

That's not quite true. Alberta was seriously slammed by the recession and low commodity prices of the early 90s (and also when the same happened in the early 80s). Don Getty was PC premier in the late 80s and early 90s and was ridiculously unpopular and was driven out of office. It looked like the PCs were facing certain defeat in 1993 to the Alberta Liberals and in the 1993 election campaign it was a contest between the PCs and the Liberals over who could promise the most drastic, draconian cuts to social programs and spending etc... The PCs under Ralph Klein won by seeming slightly less rightwing than the Alberta Liberals who at the time were very "blue grit" under Lawrence Decore. Then the rollercoaster ride happened and oil prices soared and the provincial coffers filled up again.

The UCP handled the latest downturn very badly. Kenney's first couple of budgets had the highest deficits in Alberta history and he picked fights with everyone under the sun. At one point at the start of the pandemic during the lockdown oil from Alberta was worth less than zero. The only thing that saved the day for the UCP (though too late for Kenney) was a spike in world demand for oil post-pandemic coupled with the Ukraine war sending oil and gas prices through the roof. Right now Danielle Smith is presiding over a "sugar high" and is spending like a drunken sailor. But as usual, the party will end, commodity prices will crash and then Smith will be put to the test. Its the easiest thing in the world to government when revenue is flooding in and you can buy people off.  

The Alberta economy is very simple. When the world price of oil goes up the economy gets a sugar high and whoever is in power claims credit. The when the world price of oil declines, there is an economic collapse and everyone blames whoever is in power.    

[DL]

The Alberta NDP won in 2015 with just over 40% of the vote and lost this time with just over 44% of the vote. But the distribution of that vote is quite different this time. People forget how well the NDP in parts of rural Alberta in 2015. They won seats like Peace River, Central Peace-Notley, Lesser Slave Lake, West Yellowhead, Athabaska, Wetaskiwin etc... and often got close to 30% of the vote in many other seats where they lost. Of course winning many of those seats also hinged on good three way splits with the PCs and Wildrose eating into each other's support. But in 2023 the NDP not only did not come close to winning any of those rural seats - in almost every case their vote share was much lower than in 2015.

In contrast while the NDP did well seatwise in Calgary (due to vote splits) i think the NDP vote share across Calgary in 2015 was in the high 30s. This time it was 49%!

Also, in 2015 the NDP won almost every seat in Edmonton with the North Korean-like super-majorities. This time while the NDP won by massive margins in some inner city seats, they won a lot of Edmonton seats by more modest low to mid-teens margins. So there was less "waste vote" in Edmonton.   

[DL]

Welcome to the world of first past the post, in our electoral system all that matters is the seat count so you put 100% of your efforts into the marginal seats and you ignore everything else. If Alberta had some sort of proportional representation system then an extra NDP vote in Drumheller would be worth just as much as an extra vote in Calgary. But we don’t have that system. It’s like a presidential election in the US where all that matters are five or six closely contested states. The GOP should not waste money trying to win Massachusetts and the Dems should not waste money trying to win Kentucky.

[DL]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

[DL]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.

Its bit like how Democrats are becoming more competitive in some rural Colorado congressional districts that include places like Aspen and Vail.

[DL]

I wonder if the NDP won the Jasper polls in Yellowhead

[DL]

CTV reports the recount is complete in Calgary Acadia is complete and the NDP margin expands from 7 votes to 25!

[DL]

The NDP win in Calgary Glenmore is confirmed after the recount. Election night 30 vote margin grows to 42 votes.

[DL]

The official results are out. NDP narrow wins in Calgary-Acadia and Calgary-Glenmore are both confirmed and by slightly bigger margins. Also the NDP margin in Banff-Kananaskis increases from about 200 to about 300.

https://officialresults.elections.ab.ca/orResultsPGE.cfm?EventId=101

[DL]

There SHOULD be a new redistribution in Alberta based on the 2021 census and that redistribution SHOULD create a couple of new suburban seats that are likely to be NDP leaning and the redistribution SHOULD eliminate a couple of underpopulated rural seats.

But does ANYONE trust Danielle Smith not to interfere in the process and try to gerrymander the map to the benefit of the UCP?

[DL]

I wonder why the NDP didn’t clean up the redistribution process and make it more non partisan when they had the chance?

[DL]

Final Result Totals

Total Votes: 1,765,089
UCP: 928,896, 52.6%, 49
NDP: 777,397, 44.0%, 38

City proper
Edmonton: 370,496
NDP: 232,879, 62.9%, 20
UCP: 127,773, 34.5%,  0

Calgary: 551,920
NDP: 272,344, 49.3%, 14
UCP: 266,425, 48.3%, 12


If anybody disagrees with riding placements, calculate your own results
Rural: 377,532
UCP: 265,770, 70.4%, 19
NDP:  91,626, 24.3%    1

Rural North: 1.Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock, 2.Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, 3.Central Peace-Notley, 4.Lesser Slave Lake, 5.Peace River

Rural North: 69,878
UCP: 51,633, 73.9%
NDP: 17,167, 24.6%

Rural Central: 1.Camrose, 2.Drayton Valley-Devon, 3.Drumheller-Stettler, 4.Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, 5.Lac Ste Anne-Parkland, 6.Lacombe-Ponoka, 7.Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin, 8.Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, 9.Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright, 10.West Yellowhead

Rural Central: 204,689
UCP: 145,230, 71.0%
NDP:  46,508, 22.7%

Rural South: 1.Banff-Kananaskis, 2.Cardston-Siksika, 3.Livingstone-McLeod, 4.Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, 5.Taber-Warner

Rural South: 102,965
UCP: 68,907, 66.9%
NDP: 27,951, 27.1%

Edmonton 'Donut': 1.Leduc-Beaumont, 2.Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, 3.Morinville-St.Albert, 4.Sherwood Park, 5.Spruce Grove-Stony Plain, 6.St. Albert, 7.Strathcona-Sherwood Park

Edmonton 'Donut' 178,307
UCP: 91,593, 51.4%
NDP: 80,833, 45.3%

Riding Results
20,000+ votes, 53/87 ridings
50%+ turnout, 76/87 ridings
60%+ turnout, 46/87 ridings

Most votes: Airdrie-Cochrane: 30,072

Thanks for doing this but shouldn't there be another category for "small cities" (i.e. Lethbridge, Red Deer etc.) and what do you do about "Calgary donut"? PS: Some would argue that Banff-Kananaskis is more Calgary donut than it is rural south, but i digress.