With just over two weeks to go in the Alberta provincial election, a new poll has found the Alberta NDP is now ahead of the United Conservative Party.
According to a survey done by Abacus Data of 885 eligible voters from May 9 to 12, the NDP gained seven points from the last survey done by Abacus before the election began.
The poll found 43 per cent of eligible voters say they would vote NDP, followed by the UCP at 35 per cent. Abacus’ previous poll in April had the two parties virtually tied.
The Alberta Party came in at four per cent. Fourteen per cent say they are still undecided — down eight points since April.
In Edmonton, a typical NDP stronghold, the party is leading by 33 per cent (23 per cent for the UCP vs. 56 per cent for the NDP), while the party is slightly ahead of the competition in Calgary — 42 per cent compared to 36 per cent for the UCP.
The UCP leads by eight per cent outside of the two largest cities.
Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt said a portion of previously undecided voters are now backing the NDP.
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“Typically, we don’t see these sorts of big swings in a campaign — but obviously they are capturing something that is going on here,” Bratt said.
“Undecided voters and reluctant conservative voters now swinging to the NDP and I have to wonder if it was Smith’s comments about comparing 75 per cent of Albertans to supporters of Hitler and Nazis, if that’s coming back to hurt her.”
Bratt said a lot could still change in the remaining two weeks of the election.
“There was a question about how (conservative voters) would respond. Would they just hold their nose and vote UCP because they believe the alternative of Rachel Notley and the NDP is worse? Would they flip and support the NDP or would they just stay at home?” Bratt said.
“There’s still two weeks to go in the campaign, but early appearances are that there is some momentum towards the NDP.”
Bratt said the election could come down to a few thousand voters in about six Calgary ridings.
“We’ve been saying, for a while, that this election will be won or lost in the city of Calgary, and it will be determined by people who have traditionally voted conservative in the past who their gut instinct is to vote conservative, but they have some real doubt about the leadership, judgement and competency of Danielle Smith,” Bratt said.
Speaking at a Calgary news conference on Saturday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley seemed unfazed by the new poll.
“Albertans are telling us that what they want to hear from the leaders is how they’re going to address the health-care crisis and how they’re going to deliver trusted, competent and capable leadership that will provide stability to a province after years of chaos,” Notley said.
Also speaking in Calgary on Saturday, Smith said she was pleased to see that the gap had narrowed in favour of the UCP going into the election.
“We knew this was going to be a tough election. We went for two years, polling behind the NDP so I was pleased through the leadership race with the work we did, and in the fall — addressing some issues with the budget and coming together as a unified team,” Smith said.
“We do have a lot of work to do, to get people to understand just how important this election is,” Smith said.
The survey was conducted with 885 Alberta adults eligible to vote from May 9 to 12, 2023. The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 3.4%, 19 times out of 20. The survey was paid for by Abacus Data Inc.
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