Alberta 2012

[Californian Tony]

Well, phew.

[Hashemite]

Albertans are useless liars. Or they're even more fickle than French people.

[Hatman]

Updated results map: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2012/04/alberta-2012-provincial-election.html

Complete with pie charts a la Dave Leip.

[Hatman]

The Liberals are in 3rd place in PV now, but some of the outstanding polls are in NDP ridings, so I think the NDP will overtake the Liberals again (1000 vote difference)

[Novelty]

Wow, outside of the cities, there's almost a line dividing Northern and Southern Alberta.

[DL]

The voting pattern in Alberta was remarkably similar to what we saw in Manitoba and Ontario...the party seen to be on the centre-left (within the context of that province's political culture - ie: PC in Alberta, NDP in MB, Libs and NDP in Ontario) swept the cities and suburbs while the party of the far right (PCs in Ontario and MB and WRA in AB) was relegated to being purely a rural phenomenon.

[lilTommy]

The voting pattern in Alberta was remarkably similar to what we saw in Manitoba and Ontario...the party seen to be on the centre-left (within the context of that province's political culture - ie: PC in Alberta, NDP in MB, Libs and NDP in Ontario) swept the cities and suburbs while the party of the far right (PCs in Ontario and MB and WRA in AB) was relegated to being purely a rural phenomenon.

Similar rural split too... in all the cases, the North voted along the centre-left/left of centre line (PC in ALTA; NDP in MB; NDP/LIB in ON)

this really was a polls were dead wrong, and once people got to the polling booth they decided the devil they knew was better. Undecideds ran to the safety of the PCs... i knew the bad media coverage would have some impact, esp in the cities.. i just thought it would be a minority

[Holmes]

This and Manitoba last year had the most shocking results (not in terms of popular vote for Manitoba, but seat count). Maybe Newfoundland too with the rise of the NDP, but that was expected.

[Hatman]

Manitoba wasn't that shocking, it was my best prediction of the Fall (and 308 did even better). In fact, all the provincial elections in the Fall matched the polls more or less. This one didn't. At all. I don't care what spin the pollsters give.

[Hatman]

With just one poll to go in the entire province, it looks like the Liberals will hang on to third place by 900 votes.

Senate race
Doug Black, PC - 16% "elected"
Scott Tannas, PC - 13% "elected"
Mike Shaikh, PC - 11% "elected" (ahead by 7000 votes)
Raymond Germain, WRP - 11%
Rob Gregory, WRP - 11%
Vitor Marciano, WRP - 9%
Elizabeth Johansson, EVG - 6%
Len Bracko, Ind - 5%
David Fletcher, Ind - 4%
Ian Urquhart, Ind - 4%
Paul Frank, Ind - 3%
William Exelby, Ind - 3%
Perry Chanal, Ind - 2%

[Hatman]

The Evergreen Senate candidate is in 2nd place in Edmonton-Strathcona with 21 polls still to report. She could "win" it.

[Hatman]

Turnout is 57%, extremely high for Alberta.

[Vasall des Midas]

So Wildrose is the South Alberta Party.

[Hatman]

Map/chart complete: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2012/04/alberta-2012-provincial-election.html

I hope it is very Leipish.

[rob in cal]

I wonder if one reason for the polls being so wrong is that there is a big pool of voters who were comfortable with both the PC and WR, and so were fluctuating around alot, kind of like US primary election polls were you can sometimes find big discrepancies.

[Hatman]

Yeah, it is kind of like a primary election, isn't it. I dont buy the argument that Liberals ditched their party at the last minute for the PCs, they got about what they polled. Most of the vote switching was from WRP to PC.

[adma]

If the PC candidates lost 5 points to WRA in all seats, we'd be looking at a near-tie (or actual tie?) in seat count.

[You kip if you want to...]

This was quite the UK 1992 moment, no?

I feel a bit sad I missed it. It's always nice to have an election where polls are so wildly off. It keeps the suspense alive.

In a way, but in 1992, the ratings for the leaders gave it away. Major was relatively popular, Kinnock wasn't. Can't say that Alison's more popular than Danielle Smith...

The PCs did not deserve to win this (especially not by that margin) whatsoever, even again the Wildrose.

[Nichlemn]

WRP did badly in seats for losing by "only" ten points. How many FPP elections won by similar margins have resulted in such lopsided numbers? Conversely, the Liberals and NDP did pretty well for parties that won less than 10% of the vote. Just look at Calgary and Edmonton - the WRP beat the Liberals in both cities (by a significant margin in the former), but still won less seats.

[President Marokai]

WRP did badly in seats for losing by "only" ten points. How many FPP elections won by similar margins have resulted in such lopsided numbers? Conversely, the Liberals and NDP did pretty well for parties that won less than 10% of the vote. Just look at Calgary and Edmonton - the WRP beat the Liberals in both cities (by a significant margin in the former), but still won less seats.

The only comparison I can think of recently would be Manitoba last year, where the PCs came within 2.5% of the NDP's overall vote share and gained absolutely nothing. The MNDP wound up gaining a seat to form their largest majority ever, despite losing 2% over their previous election showing. Just lucky seat distribution I suppose. (And similarly, the Manitoba PCs racked up the vote in southern/rural Manitoba, while gaining basically no foothold in the urban area/s.)

[Smid]

As Marokai says, it's seat distribution rather than simply being FPTP. Even under preferential voting, WRP is unlikely to have gained many extra ridings. Only under a proportional system would they likely have had a substantial improvement in representation.

[Californian Tony]

Map/chart complete: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2012/04/alberta-2012-provincial-election.html

I hope it is very Leipish.

It is very well-done, yeah.

[Peter the Lefty]

How strange: one day, the far-right does far better in France than polls had predicted.  The very next day, they do much worse than polls predicted in Alberta. 

[Nichlemn]

How strange: one day, the far-right does far better in France than polls had predicted.  The very next day, they do much worse than polls predicted in Alberta. 

The FN's type of "far-right" is much different from the WRP's type.

[Hatman]

How strange: one day, the far-right does far better in France than polls had predicted.  The very next day, they do much worse than polls predicted in Alberta. 

The FN's type of "far-right" is much different from the WRP's type.

Still though, he has a point. I suppose Albertans are less ashamed to back a right wing party like WRP, because they're well, Albertan. Maybe they were ashamed to say they'd support the Tories?

My theory is that a large majority of undecideds went PC. They made up their decision at the last minute. Also, the larger voter turnout means that people who dont normally vote came out of the wood work to stop Wildrose.