WATCH: Chief Political Correspondent Tom Clark joins Dawna Friesen to explain why the politics of fear didn’t work in Alberta and voters showed they weren’t afraid to make a big change to their political landscape.
The majority of Albertans wanted a change, according to a new poll, and they got it; tearing down the 44-year Conservative dynasty and lifting up a new NDP majority government during Tuesday’s historic provincial election.
An Angus Reid poll of 800 Albertans conducted from April 30 to May 3 and considered accurate within +/- 3.5 percentage points found 69 per cent of respondents agreed that a change in the provincial legislature was needed.
“Albertans voters were ready for and wanting a change,” Shachi Kurl, a senior vice president at Angus Reid polling, said in an interview Wednesday.
The election came down to three issues as well as knowns and unknowns, Kurl said, with the mood for change and the growing strength of the NDP factoring into each one. What was known was that Albertans wanted change, what was unknown was how many people would actually turn up to vote.
Nearly 59 per cent of eligible voters showed up to the polls, according to early estimates; Rachel Notley’s NDP party won 53 seats, forming the first non-PC majority government in the province in 44 years. The Wildrose Party forms the official opposition with 21 seats and the once-mighty Progressive Conservatives form the third party with just 10 seats. The Liberals were relegated to 1 seat in the legislature.
“I’m a great believer in the adage that governments are defeated not elected and that’s not unique to this election but it’s particularly true in this election,” Barry Kay, an associate professor in political science at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Kay went on to say that the election doesn’t mark the beginning of an ideological shift to the left for Alberta. While Notley will likely be more left-leaning and less business-friendly, he says she “is smart enough not to be overly ideological.”
“The people of Alberta said it was clearly just time for a change.”
The issues that got the NDP elected
So what were the issues that got Rachel Notley and her NDP elected? The mood of the province, the issue of leadership, and the issue of issues. And Notley won on all three.
READ MORE: Canadian politicians react to Alberta NDP majority government
The Angus Reid poll suggested 62 per cent of respondents thought Notley would make the best premier. Only 25 per cent had an unfavourable view of the new premier-elect.
“These are findings that Prentice was nowhere close on, nor were the Conservatives.”
In contrast, 63 per cent of Albertans had an unfavourable view of Jim Prentice, and 27 per cent had a favourable view.
WATCH: The Alberta election in five minutes
Notley won on the issues as well, with the NDP seen as the best choice to lead on two of the three most important voter issues — health care and job creation, according to the poll. Twenty-nine per cent of respondents thought the Wildrose Party was the best to deal with the deficit and government spending, but even there – on an issue that doesn’t traditionally speak to NDP stereotypes – the NDP was a close second at 22 per cent.
Campaigns matter
Notley and the NDP won the election, and the campaign. Forty-eight per cent of respondents told Angus Reid their opinion of the left-leaning leader and her party improved over the course of the election.
Alberta election results 2015: Real-time results in the provincial election
Kurl attributes part of this to the debate.
The debate wasn’t as kind to Prentice, who was panned online after he told Notley that “math is difficult.”
READ MORE: Analysis shows Prentice took a beating on Twitter over #Mathishard
And the public’s opinion of Prentice worsened, according to the Angus Reid poll. Fifty-two per cent of respondents said their opinion of the PC leader changed for the worse over the course of the election.
WATCH: Jim Prentice gives his concession speech
Ready for change
Perhaps the most important finding of the poll is that Albertans were ready for a change. But glimpses of Albertans’ appetite for something different were evident in 2012, Kurl said, when the Wildrose Party was close to taking power from the reigning Progressive Conservatives.
“You had a leader in Danielle Smith who was more prepared to stand by her candidates on issues of free speech than recognize that they might be gaffes that would give the electorate the heebie-jeebies and send them stampeding back the Conservatives,” Kurl said.
“The Conservatives had their second chance if you will in 2012.”
But they didn’t take advantage of that chance over the course of the last three years as Alison Redford stepped down over spending scandals, and Prentice called an early election that wasn’t rewarded by the voters.
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