Alberta Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley says she will run for premier again in 2023.
Notley confirmed those plans in a Facebook post and on Twitter Thursday morning.
“There’s so much opportunity in Alberta and there’s so much frustration with the current government,” Notley’s post read. “Alberta’s greatest resource is its people and I’m going to fight for all of them.”
An Angus Reid Institute poll earlier this week revealed support for Notley’s NDP has been increasing in Alberta since the provincial election last year.
Notley’s one-term as premier ended in April 2019, when Jason Kenney and the UCP handily won the election. The NDP took almost all of Edmonton, but few seats outside of the city.
According to the survey results released on Monday, only 38 per cent of Albertans would have supported the UCP if an election were to be held tomorrow.
That would have put the UCP in a tie with the NDP, which the survey said would also receive 38 per cent of the vote.
In the 2019 election, the UCP won 54.9 per cent of the vote, while the NDP received 32.7 per cent.
The survey also showed that among voters who had voted for the UCP in 2019, 30 per cent of them are now considering switching to another party. Alternatively, only five per cent of people who voted NDP said they would switch.
In December, Notley told Global News she intended to run again in 2023, but Thursday is the first time she’s said a definitive “yes” that she will be at the head of the party in the next provincial election.
“I feel pretty bullish about our chances,” she said in an end-of-year interview.
The NDP formed government in 2015 after 44 years of conservative wins.
— With files from Allison Bench, Global News and The Canadian Press