WATCH ABOVE: Former Highwood PC MLA Danielle Smith joins Global Calgary with her reaction to the results from Tuesday’s 2015 Alberta election.
CALGARY – Former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith says the results from the 2015 Alberta election show a progressive vote that united behind Rachel Notley, and a divided conservative vote that’s split between the PCs and the Wildrose.
Notley’s NDP won a majority government in Alberta, ending the 44-year reign of the Progressive Conservatives.
“Even though she won 53 seats, she did it with 40 per cent of the vote. The combined PC/Wildrose vote was 52 per cent,” said Smith during an interview on Global Calgary’s Morning News on Wednesday.
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“There are many ridings that she won because the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose split the vote.”
READ MORE: Danielle Smith gets some jabs in during online Alberta election chat
“What this says to me is that conservatives are really going to have to figure out how to come together as a single voting group behind one party and one leader,” said Smith. “I tried to do that in December and failed.”
Smith crossed the floor to join the Progressive Conservatives in December of 2014. However, she lost her seat in the legislature to Carrie Fischer, who won the PC nomination over Smith in the riding of Calgary-Highwood.
“I obviously went about it the wrong way, at the wrong time… but I think people understand now why I was genuinely concerned that if we continued this vote split, with the dynamic of the province changing as it has over the last five years, that this was going to be the inevitable outcome.”
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“It really does point, in my opinion, to the fact that these conservatives need to come back together.”
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