When it comes to this Alberta election, the math is all-important.
With 87 seats in the legislature, a party needs 44 to form a majority government.
The province can be broken down into three battlegrounds: Calgary with 26 seats, Greater Edmonton with 27, and smaller cities and rural ridings with 34.
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No one block is enough to vault a party into office, so traditionally the winning party needs to take at least two of the three.
If polling holds and the NDP loses rural Alberta, the party needs to all but sweep Edmonton and Calgary. The party traditionally finds its deepest support in Alberta’s capital.
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Likewise, if the UCP wins Alberta’s small cities and rural ridings, the party still needs to make inroads in one of the major cities.
“Everything comes down to battleground Calgary,” said Bob Murray of Dentons Canada.
Polling so far has shown a fairly tight race in Edmonton and Calgary while in the rest of Alberta the UCP maintains a significant lead.
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