Alberta election 2023

[politicallefty]

Interesting that the NDP vote share in Calgary remained the same in 2019.

It seems like 2019 was sort of a primal scream on the part of the right in Alberta. I would be interested in seeing the 2015 federal results in each city. Apart from 2021, 2015 was the only year since 1968 that the LPC managed to win a seat in Calgary.

It's been obvious to me that the key to winning Alberta provincially is winning Calgary. Despite the landslide that was 2019, what was the tipping point riding in the provincial election? Of course, I think the biggest issue is that models don't really work when you move from a 22% win to something much closer or a significant loss.

[politicallefty]

It seems like 2019 was sort of a primal scream on the part of the right in Alberta.

Andrew Scheer levels of Designated Conservative Region Resentment Drivel Standard Bearer Candidate

Yeah, but it's not like they didn't have Stephen Harper's CPC before (or the Alliance or Reform).

[politicallefty]

The Danielle Smith strategy is clear enough: totally write off Edmonton, hope you keep enough in Calgary, sweep everything outside the two cities to form a majority government. You can criticize this approach by making observations like pointing out that the Banff seat is a rural seat that is certainly not safe, but I've never liked this sort of seat-by-seat analysis when it comes to Canada, because we're dealing with the Canadian electorate here and anything is possible.

When you try to lay out the logic of Danielle Smith's approach, basically it's an attempt to make the province-wide vote total irrelevant: if we just win the seats we need to, this line of thinking goes, it doesn't matter what they do in Edmonton because we're not planning on winning those seats anyway. The problem is that for this approach to be successful, the party using it needs to have a substantially more efficient vote than its opposition. Given typical voting patterns in rural Alberta, it is, uh, difficult to imagine the United Conservative Party having a particularly efficient vote distribution.

So, then, unless you think that the NDP will win 75% of the vote across the whole city of Edmonton while the UCP nonetheless wins half a dozen Calgary seats, you're left with having to win more votes than the opposition. The polls suggest that passing the NDP will be an uphill battle for the government, and Danielle Smith's rhetoric doesn't suggest she's terribly interested in that. The right-wing posturing to avoid losing the base might be a good strategic move in order to keep the party afloat in the medium term, but from the standpoint of short-term tactics it doesn't make any sense. (In fact, letting right-wing fringe parties get 20% of the vote in safe rural ridings would go a long way toward making the UCP vote efficient enough to win a majority even without getting the most votes.) Maybe gas prices go through the roof again and change everything, but right now it's hard for me to see how Rachel Notley isn't premier in seven months.

It's probably not an unwise strategy for the UCP to mostly write-off Edmonton, but the they can almost certainly get a higher vote efficiency if the city votes around how it did in 2015. I don't think it's hard to see the NDP hitting 70%+ in Edmonton, especially in a more consolidated two-party race. The keys to government reside in Calgary and a significant portion basically votes like rural Alberta (or even more right-wing). 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.

[politicallefty]

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.

The UCP will win a lot of rural seats with North Korean-style margins, but they did in 2019 too. I doubt Smith will actually increase rural margins in any meaningful way. Kenney may be hated in much of rural Alberta now, but this wasn't the case in 2019. I very much doubt that there are that many voters in rural Alberta who didn't vote for Kenney but will for Smith - surely there are some, but not enough that the UCP improves significantly on their already mammoth margin of 42% in 2019. As far as wasted votes go, the NDP has more room to grow (yet essentially gain no seats) in fortress Edmonton than the UCP does in fortress rural Alberta.

But yeah, all that means is that ultimately it comes down to Calgary, and there are good signs for the NDP there. However, I think it's still more likely that the NDP gets fewer seats despite winning the popular vote than the reverse.

I think the NDP will probably win many Edmonton seats by North Korea-style margins, especially against someone like Danielle Smith. The 2015 margins in Edmonton were obviously not a result of the right-wing split, unlike Calgary and many other small city and rural seats. I'm not saying it can't be done, but looking at the map, it looks like the NDP needs a breakthrough in either NW or Southern Calgary (some of the most right-wing non-rural areas in Canada).

I wasn't saying Notley can't win, but she's really got her work cut out for her and I do think she has to win the provincial popular vote by at least a couple points (assuming it's basically a two-party race).

[politicallefty]

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%

Apart from the Angus Reid poll, the others have fairly similar results provincewide. However, when you look at the regional results, you're going to get some very different results in terms of seats. Maybe I'm wrong but it looks like all of those polls likely result in a UCP Majority. The NDP needs to win Calgary. They do that in the Angus Reid poll, but the problem there is that they're not winning Edmonton by enough. The Abacus poll seems to be a very optimistic result for the NDP in the rest of Alberta (and Edmonton for that matter).

[politicallefty]

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.

[politicallefty]

I actually had the same question when it comes to the CPC federal government hypothetical. It does seem like the 2019 results, both federally and provincially, were influenced by the right being shut out at both levels. Edmonton seems to provide a strong and stable floor for the ANDP. Federally that year, the CPC managed to get a higher popular vote total than Harper ever got and swept everything except Edmonton Strathcona. I have to imagine that having both Trudeau and Notley running things at their respective levels for nearly four years riled up the conservative base of the province in 2019.

It also does seem to me that in more recent years that Canadians like to check the party in power at the federal level by voting the other way in provincial elections. There are always exceptions, but there does seem to be a correlation. The centre-left certainly isn't controlling much at the provincially level right now. Not including the territories, the Liberals have Newfoundland and the NDP has BC. At the tail end of the Harper years, the centre-right had just BC, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland. (I'm not really sure how to place the PLQ then, but the CAQ is unquestionably right-of-centre.)

As for the results themselves, it's surprising how unsurprising they are. (I suppose the exception is the popular vote margin, which is certainly higher than most were expecting.) Losing is obviously disappointing, but the NDP has a lot to be proud of. They've reestablished Fortress Edmonton. It looks like their seat count in Calgary may end up right around what they got in 2015 (assuming current leads hold), though certainly more impressive since they didn't have to rely on vote splitting. Unfortunately, the rurals can't be won without vote splitting (with the one notable exception on the map). It's very easy to see where an NDP Government could be formed though. If I'm not mistaken, the tipping point seat looks to be Morinville-St. Albert, which went UCP by 6.1%.

I'm sure someone here knows, but why is Calgary West so much more conservative than its surrounding ridings? It seems to vote more like Southern Calgary.