Posted on 05/05/2015 9:19:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A local could offer you more insight (I’m just such a political junkie that I follow Canadian politics too) but I offer my analysis.
Instead of propping up the PC’s the leftist voters figured out they could get their own people in. The PC’s were unpopular enough that the old “time for a change” argument swayed enough fools.
If the vote splitting stops the right should be able to take over again next time (4 long years from now probably). If it doesn’t, that’s a problem.
Good thing the Liberals are still there to take votes from the NPD. NPD being the main left party is actually a change for Alberta, up till now it had been the Liberals. I’m sure they will do plenty of things to make themselves unpopular.
Nova Scotia recently tossed them out (though in favor of the Liberals) after 1 term after they had won there for the first time ever.
Ontario tossed them after 1 term as well, 20 years ago.
Huge swings seem to happen often in Canada.
Pop vote figures are in
NPD 40.57% (+ 30.75 points)
Wildrose 24.23% (- 10.06)
PC 27.78% (- 16.15)
Liberal 4.19% (- 5.70)
Alberta Party (minor party that’s currently “centrist”) 2.29% (+ 0.98%)
Despite losing votes, Wildrose gained 4 seats (from what they won in the last election, which was 17, they had lost most of them coming into this election) and even though the PCs had more votes they got only 10 seats to 21 for Wildrose. Combined they got over 50% of the votes.
This should have little bearing on the next federal election in Alberta but it does give the NPD stronger than usual potential candidates.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32629758
This election might be good news for Alberta’s neighbors.
Thanks for that analysis. Sounds like it was two things happening at once — conservatives punishing the PCs by voting Wildrose and liberals, who for some reason were aware that conservatives were going to do this, seizing the opportunity to vote their real preference for a change. I wonder why the liberals went for the NDP rather than the Liberal party though? Seems like the liberals who had been pragmatically voting PC wouldn’t have made the big leap to NDP but instead the smaller leap to Liberal. Maybe it’s that liberals in Alberta tend to be pretty radical with few moderates.
According the polls the NPD surge came in just the last month! As late as March 29th, the NPD was just 1 point ahead of the Liberals (and the PCs and Wildrose were tied for the lead with 30% each).
I heard something about the NPD leader being regarded as the big winner of a televised debate. I would guess that had a good deal to do with convincing Liberal voters (and Liberal/NPD voters who voted PC last time to beat Wildrose) to go with the NPD.
Terrible result but a fascinating election.
Of course, this also shows the downside of having a government elected by a minority of the population.
I think you might be right. As someone who lives, and was born, in Saskatchewan, I’m expecting an influx of Albertans. It used to be the other way around - Saskatchewanians heading to Alberta where the jobs were. The NDP used to be our natural governing party. Not any more. We learned our lesson. The “Dippers” can do a lot of damage in four years. Their population will flee to friendlier jurisdictions.
Sometimes you need to taste the bitter to know the sweet. Imagine a Wildrose lead government.
HRC need to be destroyed. They’re anti-liberty everywhere they exist.
Wildrose wanted to reduce taxation, and also wanted to bring back property rights. Sure, they aren’t as conservative as I would like, but it would of been far better.
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