“It’s extremely competitive and it’s a close race,” Michael Solberg, a partner at Calgary-based New West Public Affairs, a national public affairs firm, told The Epoch Times.
Solberg is the son of former federal cabinet minister Monte Solberg—both men worked in Ottawa with former prime minister Stephen Harper on his campaign in the 2000s.
In the Polls
An Abacus poll released May 22 predicted 40 percent of respondents would vote UCP, up by three percentage points, and 37 percent would vote NDP, down three. Meanwhile, 19 percent said they were undecided, 2 percent would vote for the Alberta Party, and 2 percent indicated support for other parties.
“This is the largest lead we’ve measured for the UCP since we started tracking vote intentions in December 2022. The NDP vote is down 6 points over two weeks while the UCP share is up 5,” said Abacus.
Before the UCP was elected in 2019, and previous to the NDP being elected in 2015, Alberta had nearly 44 years of a Progressive Conservative (PC) government elected by voters on the right, with other smaller parties splintering the vote on the left.
“In 2015, we saw the NDP come to power for the first time in Alberta history. It came right off the heels of scandal after scandal and alleged corruption by the PCs, which many people attributed to laziness and entitlement after the party had been in power for so long,” said Solberg. “The NDP was elected based on mass protests against the sitting PC incumbents.”
In March 2014, then-PC premier Alison Redford resigned in the wake of allegations she spent close to $1 million to build an elaborate private residence for herself and her daughter in a public building. The “sky palace,” as it was dubbed, was in addition to Redford’s $1,930 taxpayer-paid monthly living allowance as an MLA.
Later that year, the auditor general concluded that Redford used taxpayer money “inappropriately” while premier, with public assets like aircraft used for personal and partisan purposes as just one example. The next PC premier, Jim Prentice, took power in the fall of 2014, serving as premier for just seven months before Notley and the NDP were handed a majority government by Albertans making a statement, said Solberg.
Michael Wagner, who has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Alberta, says the close race can also be attributed to the NDP trying to “identify Notley to some degree with conservatism” in a province that has traditionally been on the right side of the political spectrum.
Factors
The UCP faces new challenges in being re-elected, again with a leader who has only been premier for seven months.“The UCP had a gruelling four years and a number of hiccups in the political landscape they weren’t expecting, namely COVID,” said Solberg.
The party under previous leader Jason Kenney brought in vaccine mandates and public health restrictions, and while some Albertans thought the government never should have implemented these measures at all, others wanted even stricter lockdowns, Solberg said.
“It began to expose some rifts in the coalition that continued with the ultimate ouster of Jason Kenney. This affected public support for the UCP incumbent party. That certainly plays a role in how close this race is.”
The other factor affecting the race is a new generation of voters, said Solberg. “Millennials now form the largest voting block. Millennials in particular vote a lot more fluidly than older generations.”
They are less entrenched in one political party and there is a willingness to switch sides, said Solberg. “Calgary in particular has been difficult to poll. Within the margin of error you can have a poll that shows one party leading but the opposite could be true.”
Marco Navarro-Génie, a senior fellow at the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy and founding president of the Haultain Research Institute, said that while the polls may suggest it’s a close race, “small c conservatives keep their cards close to their chest. They don’t answer polls. They keep their vote private.”
“Polls have been abysmally wrong in the last decade. NDP supporters are more likely to respond to polls, more likely to be younger voters, and less likely to show up to vote,” Navarro-Genie told The Epoch Times.
“The NDP didn’t get a second term. Parties who burn out on election in Alberta tend to never come back.”
If the UCP were defeated by the NDP, giving the NDP a second term after being out of office, it would be historic, said Navarro-Génie.
“I think Albertans will be surprised. The early turnout and a high turnout says voters understand how important this election is.”
