Alberta Election 2019: A UCP Landslide

It did not take long for the news agencies to declare that Jason Kenney's United Conservative Party had won the election held yesterday. I got an alert on my phone at 8:38, less than half an hour after the first results had come in.

I was not surprised to see the UCP form the government, and I think most people felt that was coming. However, they did much better than I anticipated. As of writing, they have won or are leading in 63 seats province-wide. They were able to expand their share of the popular vote beyond the 53% threshold hit by the PCs and WRP in the previous election. They were able to win seats all over Alberta, and often crushed the NDP in ridings some suspected to be closer. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, they crushed the opposition in general.

The Liberals won zero seats and got less than 1% of the vote. The Alberta Party won zero seats, though they got 9% of the vote. Perhaps most hilariously, the Freedom Conservative Party was utterly destroyed as a serious political entity - winning zero seats and getting fewer votes across the province than the Alberta Independence Party. Their leader, Derek Fildebrandt, was totally humiliated, repudiated, whatever you like - coming in a distant 3rd place with only 7.7% percent of the vote, and only slightly ahead of the Alberta Party, in his home riding.

Accordingly, the UCP have only to face a much reduced NDP in the legislature for the foreseeable future. It's my belief that this is the best possible outcome for them, as they will have an easier time dodging and dismissing criticism from the NDP than a coalition of other parties.

Whither the Alberta Party, and everybody else?

Further, the UCP may not need worry about the Alberta Party drawing away support in the elections to come. Though the Alberta Party was able to quadruple it's support in the popular vote, this wasn't enough to translate to seats, or even many strong showings. Greg Clark, the first person to be elected as an AP MLA, was handily defeated in Calgary-Elbow, coming in 2nd place with 32% of the vote. As far as I could tell, only party leader Stephen Mandel and former MLA Rick Fraser broke 20% support in their ridings. It is hard to foresee how the Alberta Party could build upon their support without even one MLA in the legislature. They will have no more profile, no more media coverage; no more attention at all really for at least for four more years!

So now that the election is over, the best insight we can get into the future may come from the Q2 and especially Q3 financial disclosure reports to Elections Alberta. I anticipate the UCP and NDP will maintain their support, at least relative to each other, but the real question I anticipate is what happens to the supporters of the other parties.

For reference, the Alberta Liberals raised $174,000 in 2018. The Alberta Party raised almost $600,000 in the same year. The Freedom Conservatives managed to draw almost $40,000. Curiously, no numbers were available for the Alberta Independence Party. But it's worth noting none of these numbers reflect any fundraising in 2019 - and the monetary support that went the Liberals and Alberta Party was pretty considerable, nonetheless. Where does this money go? Into the big parties, or into somebody else? Or does it stay in their pockets?

There are certainly more things to consider in the days to come. Thanks for reading!

Alberta Election 2019, Part 2: the Centre-Left

The New Democratic Party of Alberta

                Nobody can say that the NDP were going to have an easy path to re-election. Only the most diehard partisans even argued that the chances for their re-election were good. Polling before the writ placed the NDP as the choice of less than a third of Albertans – still a historically strong showing for the provincial NDP, to be sure, but a rather toothless amount of support against the massive public support for the UCP. One-third of support doesn’t translate to a third of the seats; the NDP looked at the possibility of being a rather small big fish in a barely bigger opposition pond.

                Further, the Alberta Party and the Liberals would not just go away, potentially drawing support away from the NDP in many key ridings.

                However, the NDP embarked on the campaign outwardly aiming to win. A strong campaign, with some good fortune in terms of the strength and distribution of support, could still mean an either strong opposition, or even a narrowly won victory. Anaemic campaigns by their opponents might even translate to gains to make up for losses elsewhere.

Prospects

                The NDP would need a very strong campaign, mixed with some good fortune, to retain government. At the beginning of the campaign, however, the NDP were looking at the following:

• -          Winning most of the seats within the city of Edmonton;
• -          Retaining a handful of seats outside of Edmonton;
• -          Retaining much of their voter support from the previous election; and
• -          Forming the opposition to the government.

The Campaign

                The NDP campaign has not had the strong campaign it needed to completely close the lead the UCP had over them at the beginning. However, they have been aided by relatively poor campaigns from the UCP an even the Alberta Party. Accordingly, they have accrued support throughout the campaign. It is uncertain how much this added support will translate into seats. It is unlikely that it is enough to form the government, but now the NDP looks like it could form the strongest opposition to a government in Alberta since the Liberals in 1993.

Likely Results

-          The NDP will win 25-33 seats in the election; of these

o   They will win the majority of the seats in the city of Edmonton, possibly sweeping them;

o   They will win anywhere from 5-10 of the seats in Calgary, particularly along Crowchild Trail (traditionally Liberal seats) and in North-Central and Northeast Calgary.

o   They will likely hold on to a few seats outside of the big cities, particularly Lethbridge-West.

-          In terms of placement in the election results, the NDP can expect

o   To maintain vote shares relative to their results in 2015

o   Form the opposition in the legislature.

The Alberta Liberals

                The Alberta Liberal party comes here, in third place, by virtue of having received more votes in the last election than the parties that follows. However, that vote total, counted on May 5, 2015, does nothing to represent the terrible momentum and events that belied the Alberta Liberals in the succeeding four years, not mention the previous seven, which had seen their share of the vote collapse from 25% to 4%. 

                Their one seat in the legislature placed them in a tie with the Alberta Party and Freedom Conservatives. However, their one MLA, the respected David Swann, finally decided to take his well-earned retirement, something neither Greg Clark of the Alberta Party or Derek Fildebrandt were prepared to do.

                Further, his resignation brought about an embarrassing leadership contest, between the Johnny-come-lately and eventual, narrow winner David Khan, and current Alberta Party operative Kerry Cundal, who ran on the platform of merging the Alberta Liberals with the Alberta Party. Less than two thousand votes were cast, resulting in a narrow victory for Khan and the Liberal diehards.

                Following this landmark leadership contest, the Liberals had byelection to make Don Quixote proud. With Jason Kenney returning to Alberta from Ottawa to seek a seat, long-term PC MLA Dave Rodney resigned to offer him his riding, one of the safest in the province. The Liberals, for some reason, decided to make a statement and poured a significant amount of their capital into the byelection, with Liberal leader Khan running against the favourite, Kenney, and coming in third.

                They entered the 2019 election with very little momentum, a poor fundraising situation, and almost no media profile. The Liberals were able to scrape together 50-something candidates across the province for the election (generally in the south), but they will undoubtedly be content if the leader, Khan, retains their last, Calgary-Mountainview, seat.

Prospects

                Were the Liberals to enjoy a strong campaign, they could probably hope for the following:

• -          A win in Calgary-Mountainview; and
• -          An increase in vote totals (62,153) and share (4.19%) from 2015.

The Campaign

                David Khan arguably had the best debate performance of any of the party leaders in the Leader’s Debate. However, this, and a number of high-profile policy proposals, have done nothing to increase their odds of success or survival. Polls consistently place them below their 2015 vote share of 4% - often as low as 1% of intended voters, and that’s even with David Khan competitive in Calgary-Mountainview. However, he seems to be polling in third – albeit a strong third – but third nonetheless. A loss here, and that bad, likely signals the death of the party, as unlike the 1970s (when they had no seats), they were at least the strongest progressive voice in town. With the NDP becoming the established progressive party, this is no longer the case, and the reason for their existence disappears.

Likely Results

-          Alberta Liberals will win zero seats in the election.

o   David Khan will come in third in Calgary-Mountainview. This will be their highest placement province-wide.

-          Share of the vote, in proportional and absolute terms, will continue its decline.

The Alberta Party

                The election of Greg Clark in 2015 was a watershed moment. A new political party took on a government cabinet minister, in a safe seat, and handily defeated them. Then, that new MLA proved to be one of the hardest working people in the Legislature. His feats of promotion, for example, giving interviews in Calgary and Edmonton the same day, made the Alberta Party the most hyped political party in the province – even more than the UCP. MLAs were crossing the floor to join it – MacPherson from the NDP, Fraser from the PCs, and there were rumours of more to come. Then it all got thrown away.

                “Capitalizing” on their momentum, the Alberta Party decided a leadership convention was just the thing to raise party profile and fundraising further. Clark was out. Kara Levis, Rick Fraser (who referred to the event by accident as the PC leadership), and Stephen Mandel, were in. The latter won, and witnessed all the momentum the party possessed disappear. 

                In the succeeding years, Mandel has been taking a knee when he hasn’t been going through the motions. The Party profile steadily diminished to the point where the Alberta Party began the election having basically taken a weak third place from the Liberal Party in preference, but only because they had shed more supporters than the Alberta Party!

                That said, this election, the Alberta Party was running a candidate in every riding, and were getting much more coverage than the other fringe parties. They stand to grow in the coming election. They must hope it’s enough.

Prospects

                With a strong campaign and some luck, the Alberta Party could look forward to:

-          Winning two seats (Clark and Mandel);

-          Expanding share of the vote to double digits;

-          Strong third, or even second place showings throughout the province; and

-          Eventual merger with the Alberta Liberals.

The Campaign

                Unfortunately for the Alberta Party, the campaign was a continuation of the inertia of the post-leadership-convention days. Mandel was largely unable to recapture the attention that Clark once had, though the Leader’s Debate brought the party a decent amount of attention. Alienation from the UCP and NDP, anger and dissatisfaction among voters have undoubtedly raised the Alberta Party’s fortunes in the latter half of the campaign, as shown in polling. However, this growing support is far too little create growth (in seats), no less secure Greg Clark’s re-election. However, Greg Clark probably will be re-elected, and he’s the right person to harness whatever goodwill and momentum the Alberta Party has after the election.

Likely Results

-          Greg Clark will be re-elected in Calgary-Elbow;

-          Share of the vote will go up vs. 2015 (they got 2.29%, and didn’t run in every riding. This is pretty much a certainty);

-          Stephen Mandel resigns as leader.

Alberta Election 2019 - Prospects and Opportunities, Part 1: the UCP

                With only two days before polls close and ballots are counted, I thought I would reflect upon the situation faced by Alberta’s political parties upon the election’s calling, and how they’ve played their hand. Generally, I would say that no party has campaigned well – probably most have campaigned poorly. However, the relative poverty of their achievements is affecting them all differently, and that well be the determinant of how seats fall on Tuesday night.

The United Conservative Party

                The clear favourites going into the election, the UCP was polling in the mid-50s at the start of the campaign. Such a lead guaranteed a strong majority government. The size of their opposition would be determined mostly by the degree to which support would coalesce around the governing NDP throughout the campaign. With some fortune and competent campaigning, the UCP were poised to make big gains, and they had the capital and organization to do it.

Prospects

                If the UCP enjoyed a strong campaign, or at least one stronger than their opponents, they could probably look forward to the following:

• Growing support for the UCP from the 53% base (an amalgamation of the combined PC and WRP votes from 2015);
• Winning around 70 seats in the legislature;
• Sweeping the “Rest of Alberta” and possibly Calgary;
• Winning seats within Edmonton; and
•  Seeing the elimination of the Freedom Conservative Party, Alberta Liberal Party, and Alberta Party from the Legislative Assembly.

This last point was probably the most important for a future UCP government. Instead of a diverse opposition attacking the government from both the left, right, and centre, opposition would be consolidated solely from the left, and therefore easier for them to debate and dismiss. Further, the elimination of the Alberta Party and Freedom Conservatives would eliminate a possible home base for non-NDP opposition to the party and disgruntled members. Altogether, this would simplify their position as government and as the opponent of the NDP. 

The Campaign

                Though polling in Alberta is notoriously error-prone, almost all polls have recorded a trend of declining support for the UCP.  If we take an average of 55% support going into the campaign, we note a decline of anywhere from 5-10 points province-wide, depending on the poll to which you refer. Polls which break the data down to Alberta’s three regions tend to demonstrate the following: big losses in support in Edmonton; narrowing support in Calgary; while support remains unchanged in the rest of the province.

                The reasons for this are myriad. The campaign is really the first opportunity many Albertans – including the media here – have had to scrutinize the UCP. Unfortunately for the UCP, they have not held up well under that scrutiny. Dozens of candidates have been exposed as bigoted or subscribing to conspiracy theories – and only two resigned. Their leader, Jason Kenney, has handled these scandals poorly when pressed on the issue. Further, Kenney himself is under an increasingly visible cloud of criminal activity stemming from his election as UCP leader.

                The UCP will almost undoubtedly win the election to come. The question going forward will be how much of the UCP survives to the next election.

Likely Results

• UCP will win 57-60 seats in the election; 
• They will win the vast majority of the seats in the “Rest of Alberta;” 
• They will win most of the seats in Calgary – maybe ¾ with some luck (17-18); and 
• They might win a seat in Edmonton. 

• However, they will likely: 
• Get a smaller share of the vote compared to 2015 (sub-53%); and 
• Continue to face the Alberta Party in the Legislature.