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Today's the day, friends: We're finally at the finish line of the craziest three-way race Alberta has ever seen, and a surprising front-runner has emerged to dominate the polls.
So how did we get to this point in rock-ribbed, conservative Alberta? How exactly does a province that has elected, and re-elected, Progressive Conservative governments for 44 years find itself on the precipice of electing a left-wing New Democrat as premier? If you're scratching your heads, our recent Alberta politics primer is a good place to start, but this already unusual campaign has managed to shift dramatically even in the past two weeks.
During this stretch, Albertans have witnessed the strongest NDP effort of their lives. Led by the charismatic Rachel Notley, who by all accounts won the election's only televised leader's debate, the NDP has surged to historic polling highs in Alberta in rapid fashion, as the chart above shows. The NDP has only been growing stronger by the day and even appears to be drawing support from some former Wildrose Party voters who are eager to back a horse that can finally put an out-of-touch regime to pasture.
As for the far-right Wildrose, their one-note anti-tax message, trumpeted by former federal Conservative MP Brian Jean, has failed to catch fire in the same way that their insurgent campaign did in 2012. However, to the NDP's advantage, the Wildrose appears to be almost perfectly splitting the right-leaning vote with the PCs. At the same time, the predictable Tory fear mongering aimed at portraying the NDP as a radical socialist party has fallen on deaf ears. Along with the imminent demise of Alberta's Liberal Party, that's allowed the NDP to consolidate centrist and left-leaning voters under their big orange tent.
One stunning story illustrates just how bizarre this election has been. The NDP received a last-minute gift from the electoral gods on Friday, when five Tory-connected business executives held a press conference in a penthouse boardroom to attack the NDP's plan to modestly raise the corporate income tax rate. These CEOs even warned that they would stop donating to charitable causes (specifically threatening a prominent children's hospital!) if the NDP were to win. The backlash to this startling, Romney-esque debacle was so severe, it felt almost as if the NDP had scripted the presser themselves. Few parties are blessed to see their opponents immolate themselves with a catastrophe of this caliber.
When planning our election preview coverage, we had initially intended to provide an overview of the top races to watch. But as we approach zero hour, there are very few races where the PCs, who currently hold a commanding 70 of 87 seats in Alberta's legislature, are not threatened—or at least, so it appears.
In 2012, pre-election polls showed wide leads—often double digits—for the Wildrose, which looked set to end the Tories' long reign. But the PCs managed to terrify left-wing voters with the prospect of a Wildrose victory, and many abandoned the Liberals and NDP to vote for the one party that could stop the Wildrose, the Tories. That shift wasn't picked up in the polling, leading to a huge embarrassment for multiple firms when the PCs scored a 10-point victory.
Could it happen again? We can't rule it out, though a replay of 2012 would represent the polling industry's worst disaster of all time in pretty much any country. But in the absence of contradictory information, the PCs appear to be on the verge of destruction, and that renders the idea of bucketing seats into categories like "safe Tory" pointless. Instead, we'll go on a brief geographical tour of Alberta to give you the lay of the land. Head below the fold to join us on this journey.
We've divided up the province, which is home to some 4.1 million souls, into five regions, with the current party breakdowns for each listed in parentheses. Stephen Wolf has also created an interactive map with detailed information on each riding to help guide you through this swath of the Great White North:
- Southern Alberta (10 PC, 1 WRP): If the Wildrose is going to do well anywhere in Alberta, it's going to be here. The rural (and often heavily Mormon) South has long been a hotbed of right-wing activism, and 2012 was no exception: In that election, the Wildrose won eight of the region's 11 seats. But last year, all but two of those MLAs subsequently crossed the floor to join Premier Jim Prentice's Progressive Conservatives. Initially, the switch seemed like a deathblow to the Wildrose, but it's looking increasingly likely that the move was a gross miscalculation as the Wildrose has been polling very well in the region and could very well win back many of the seats it lost to these party-switchers.
In particular, keep an eye on the riding of Strathmore-Brooks, where the WRP candidate, "taxpayers' rights" activist Derek Fildebrandt, could pick up an open Tory seat. There's also the region's lone anomaly, Lethbridge, which has elected Liberal MLAs in the past and where the NDP appears poised to pick up at least one, or very possibly both, of the city's seats. An NDP upset in the Medicine Hat riding can't be ruled out, either.
- Central Alberta (16 PC, 1 WRP, 1 Independent): Central Alberta has long been a Tory stronghold, with the Tories dominating in the rural expanses and small towns that dot the landscape. In 2012, the Wildrose picked up a handful of key wins and appear to be in a dogfight with the PCs in several seats. The NDP is also pulling a sizeable share of the vote here, according to polling, but given how small-c conservative the region is, it could be hard for the party to net any seats. The riding of West Yellowhead, an area with some residual NDP strength and union-friendly demographics, is one place where the NDP could steal an upset against PC Finance Minister Robin Campbell.
- Northern Alberta (10 PC, 1 WRP): The Wildrose launched many aggressive challenges in this area in 2012 but fell short in all but one riding. Wildrose Leader Brian Jean is running for a Tory seat in Fort McMurray, an area he represented for a decade in the federal parliament, and he hopes to help the party establish a foothold in the north. However, the NDP is polling well up here, and Notley's northern roots may be playing a role. (She grew up in Fairview, a town in the northwestern Peace Country region, where her father served as the province's lone NDP MLA for over a decade.)
- Edmonton and Suburbs (15 PC, 4 NDP, 2 ALP): Once known as "Redmonton" for its proclivity to elect Liberals, Edmonton has often been the province's only true swing region in the past three decades, shifting wildly from New Democrats to Liberals to Conservatives and every permutation or combination thereof. (Well, except for the Wildrose, whose brand of right-wing puritanism never gained significant traction in this blue-collar city, the province's second-biggest.) Currently dominated by the Tories after they successfully sucked in many progressive voters in 2012, Alberta's capital city is ground zero for the orange wave. The NDP appears to have the city locked down, and the only question is whether or not any PC, particularly in the city's affluent and usually reliably Tory southwest, can survive the coming apocalypse.
- Calgary and Suburbs (22 PC, 3 ALP, 1 WRP): The province's largest city is also its corporate center, and with that has come relatively rigid conservative politics. The NDP has been shut out of the city since 1993, while the Liberals have been successful in electing a handful of MLAs in small pockets of progressive-friendly turf over the years. Calgary is home to 25 seats, so a strong showing is an absolute must if any party hopes to form government tonight. The most recent polls indicate that the NDP is gaining surprising ground in the city, and may be locked in tight three-way battles city-wide. If the Tories and Wildrose splits go just right, that could mean some small plurality wins for the NDP.
In the end, if the polls aren't completely bonkers, we could see a massive Tory wipeout, with the NDP earning a majority and the Wildrose winding up as the second-largest party in the provincial legislature. (One pollster projected that the PCs could wind up with as few as two seats, down from 70!) Plenty of other configurations are possible, but no matter what, we should be in for a very exciting night. Please join us tonight at 8 PM MT / 10 PM ET as we liveblog the results right here at Daily Kos Elections!
