Alberta Municipal Elections: October 16, 2017

[Njall]

Figured we should probably have a topic up about this. On October 16th, Alberta municipalities (except for Lloydminster) will hold elections for their municipal governments. Given their size and importance, the focus on municipal races in Alberta tends to be dominated by Calgary and Edmonton, although in 2013 we also saw some limited discussion on this forum about the elections in Red Deer, Strathcona County, and the RM of Wood Buffalo.

As a Calgarian, I can give a run-down on our elections. I may be able to provide some commentary on Edmonton's as well depending on how busy I end up being.


Calgary

Before I begin, I should note that the ward boundaries in Calgary have changed pretty significantly since the 2013 election. For reference, the old map is located here, and the new map is located here.

Calgary's incumbent Mayor, Naheed Nenshi, is seeking a third term. While it initially seemed that this would be a cakewalk, much like most Calgary elections with an incumbent Mayor, this race has actually heated up much more than expected. Nenshi's main challenger is Bill Smith, a lawyer and former firefighter who was President of the Alberta PC Party between 2009 and 2012. He is also being challenged by eight other candidates, including current Ward 10 Councillor Andre Chabot, but much of the anti-Nenshi support has coalesced around Smith. A poll by Mainstreet, released yesterday, shows Smith beating Nenshi 42% to 33%, with Chabot at 7%, others at 4% and 14% undecided. I personally have a gut feeling that that poll is off, but it's the only public poll out there at the moment.

In terms of Council races, the following five incumbents are almost-definitely safe in their re-election campaigns (ideology in brackets):

• Ward 1: Ward Sutherland (conservative)
• Ward 2: Joe Magliocca (conservative)
• Ward 12: Shane Keating (moderate conservative)
• Ward 13: Diane Colley-Urquhart (conservative)
• Ward 14: Peter Demong (conservative)

The other nine wards are either open seats, or have the incumbent councillors facing credible challenges. I'll list the "serious" candidates in each ward here, along with links to the City's candidate pages for each ward. It's sometimes tough to accurately peg candidate ideology in municipal races, but I'll try here.

Ward 3 (open seat)

• Jyoti Gondek (centrist)
• Jun Lin (conservative)
• Ian McAnerin (moderate progressive)

Ward 4

• Blair Berdusco (moderate progressive)
• Sean Chu (conservative, incumbent)
• Greg Miller (moderate progressive)

Ward 5 (open seat)*

• Sarbdeep Baidwan
• George Chahal
• Tudor Dinca
• Hirde Jassal
• Balraj Nijjar
• Aryan Sadat

*Note: in Northeast Calgary particularly, it's hard to get a read on who the serious candidate are, and where they stand ideologically. All seem to be running vaguely conservative campaigns. I would say that Baidwan and Chahal are likely the two frontrunners, but that could be completely wrong.

Ward 6 (open seat)

• Alex Columbos (moderate conservative)
• Jeff Davison (conservative)
• Sanjeev Kad (moderate(?) conservative)
• Esmahan Razavi (centrist)
• Sean Yost (conservative)

Ward 7

• Margot Aftergood (conservative)
• Brent Alexander (centrist)
• Dean Brawn (conservative)
• Druh Farrell (progressive, incumbent)

Ward 8

• Chris Davis (conservative)
• Evan Woolley (progressive, incumbent)

Ward 9

• Gian-Carlo Carra (progressive, incumbent)
• Cheryl Link (conservative)

Ward 10 (open seat)*

• Ray Jones (moderate conservative)
• Salimah Kassam (moderate progressive)
• Michelle Robinson (progressive)
• David Winkler (moderate conservative)

*Note: while this is technically an open seat, current Ward 5 Councillor Ray Jones is running for re-election here. Boundary redistribution split his old Ward 5 between the new Wards 5 and 10, and his home community of Rundle was moved to Ward 10, so that's where he chose to run.

Ward 11 (open seat)

• Robert Dickinson (progressive)
• Janet Eremenko (progressive)
• Jeromy Farkas (conservative)
• Linda Johnson (moderate conservative)

[mileslunn]

According to a recent Mainstreet Research poll Naheed Nenshi is actually trailing in the polls and it seems his approval has fallen a bit.  Otherwise he was extremely popular at first but it has somewhat worn off.  Also in the last two elections both Alberta and Canada had Conservative governments so having a Progressive municipal one was a good counter-balance whereas now it is the opposite so that might be having a slight effect as Calgary did go mostly Conservative federally except the downtown and Northeast and provincially the combined PC + WR vote was over 50% in most Calgary ridings.

[Njall]

Conservative groups have certainly been taking a more active role compared to past elections to get their candidates elected, and I'd imagine that that's partially a result of being out-of-power at the provincial and federal levels.

With that said, federal and provincial voting results don't always neatly translate over to the municipal level. The retiring three-term incumbent Councillor from my Ward, which largely overlaps with part of Stephen Harper's old federal riding, is a staunch New Democrat, and yet he won re-election to his third term with almost 50% of the vote in 2013.

[Hatman 🍁]

Nenshi losing would be awful. He is one of the best mayors this country has ever had.

[DC Al Fine]

What did Nenshi do to drop so low in the polls? Incumbent mayors ought to cruise to reelection with 70% of the popular vote.

[Hatman 🍁]

What did Nenshi do to drop so low in the polls? Incumbent mayors ought to cruise to reelection with 70% of the popular vote.

Not on their third elections. Usually the second election is a landslide, and the third is contested, due to the desire for change.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How did Nenshi even get elected in a place like Calgary?

[Hatman 🍁]

How did Nenshi even get elected in a place like Calgary?

How did the NDP form government in Alberta in 2015?

Nenshi first won in a 3-way race, but I believe even his predecessor was a Liberal.

[Njall]

How did Nenshi even get elected in a place like Calgary?

How did the NDP form government in Alberta in 2015?

Nenshi first won in a 3-way race, but I believe even his predecessor was a Liberal.

That's right, Nenshi's three-term predecessor was Dave Bronconnier, who is a federal Liberal (he ran against Rob Anders in 1997 when he was still an Alderman). And Bronconnier's predecessor, Al Duerr, is a centrist Red Tory type of politician (also, fun fact: his son-in-law is Matt Grant, the Liberal who came within 2% of winning Calgary Confederation in 2015).

Nenshi indeed won about 40% against two major challengers in 2010. Initially it was a two-way race between then-Alderman Ric McIver and former broadcaster Barb Higgins. There are many factors that led to Nenshi going from being a third-place underdog to winning, but amongst them was the overwhelming appetite for change. McIver's nickname on Council was "Dr. No," due to his strong tendency to reject new taxes or spending. He was truly the representative of the conservative political establishment. Higgins' campaign also fell apart during the campaign - I forget exactly why, but I recall people perceiving that she was "crazy," and I feel like that had something to do with her debate performance. Meanwhile, Nenshi upstaged both of them at the debates, and engaged tens of thousands of voters, especially young voters, with his "12 big ideas" platform. It's telling of how many voters that Nenshi inspired to vote by the fact that the election had a 53% turnout, when the most recent provincial election in 2008 had only had a 41% turnout.

What did Nenshi do to drop so low in the polls? Incumbent mayors ought to cruise to reelection with 70% of the popular vote.

There's a combination of factors. Tax burdens from property taxes, especially on businesses, have been on the rise throughout Nenshi's tenure. Part of this has been due to the oil downturn as opposed to direct Council action - Calgary's been dealing with 30%+ downtown office vacancy, and when those business properties aren't generating property tax revenue, the city's model pushes the burden onto businesses in other parts of the city. It's hard to explain fully, but that's the gist of it.

Another big part of his fall in popularity is personality-based. Nenshi has a tendency to be (or at least seem) pretty arrogant at times. He seems to think that he's the smartest person in any room, which is usually true, but Calgarians in particular don't like to feel talked down to. People also tend to attribute certain trends, like Council spending an increasing amount of time in in-camera sessions (which is seen as a lack of transparency), to him since he's the most visible member of Council as Mayor.

So, in summary, there is a sizeable chunk of the voting public who see City Hall as out-of-touch, and given his personality and prominence, pin the blame on Nenshi. When you couple that with a conservative establishment that doesn't like being out of power, you get the potential for a really competitive race, as we're seeing here.

[mileslunn]

How did Nenshi even get elected in a place like Calgary?

Calgary has a long history of electing fairly progressive mayors even if it goes Conservative at other levels.  Also the NDP in Alberta won the majority of Calgary seats mind you it's true a lot of that was due to vote splitting on the right unlike Edmonton where they would have swept the city even with a united right.  Last provincial election Calgary was 33% NDP, 31% PC and 24% WR.  Also federally, the Liberals won two seats in Calgary and came close to winning a third so the central and Northeastern parts are not as conservative as say the southern sections which is where Harper and Kenney are from.  The Northeast has a large East Indian community which turned hard against the Conservatives and swung heavily towards the Liberals as you saw in Brampton and Surrey.  The central part has a fairly young population and younger Albertans are a lot more progressive than older Albertans.  Amongst millennial Albertans, they aren't that much conservative than elsewhere in Canada, its more amongst Generation X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation who are significantly more conservative than elsewhere.

[adma]

Even Ralph Klein won the mayoralty in the 80s as a populist Liberal, at a time when such a brand was Albertan political kryptonite at higher levels of government.  (He switched when the provincial PCs made him an offer.)

[Njall]

Common Sense Calgary, a conservative third-party group that has been attempting to consolidate conservative votes around certain candidates as to defeat incumbent progressive Councillors, has released a number of polls on local Ward races. Usual caveats of potential bias apply because of the ideological orientation and mission of the group, but figured I would share. They've released polls on Ward 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 12 so far. Their results show the incumbent conservatives in Wards 1, 4, and 12 with safe margins, and the incumbent progressives in Ward 7, 8, and 9 only a couple of points ahead of their closest competitor (conservatives in two cases, a centrist in the third).

[Njall]

The conservative group Common Sense Calgary has released their remaining Ward polls. These should be taken with the usual grain of salt, but the picture that they paint is interesting. Their results are as follows (leaders and margin over runner-up):

* = incumbent

Ward 1: Ward Sutherland* (conservative) +24.0%, 32.1% undecided

Ward 2: Joe Magliocca* (conservative) +17.2%, 35.3% undecided

Ward 3: Jyoti Gondek (centrist) +1.2%, 44.7% undecided

Ward 4: Sean Chu* (conservative) +28.5%, 22.7% undecided

Ward 5: George Chahal (mod. conservative) +16.9%, 50.0% undecided

Ward 6: Jeff Davison (conservative) +13.9%, 43.8% undecided

Ward 7: Druh Farrell* (progressive) +2.5%, 19.9% undecided

Ward 8: Evan Woolley* (progressive) +1.3%, 33.6% undecided

Ward 9: Gian-Carlo Carra* (progressive) +1.1%, 42.6% undecided

Ward 10: Ray Jones* (mod. conservative) +12.9%, 53.1% undecided

Ward 11: Jeromy Farkas (conservative) +23.4%, 39.3% undecided

Ward 12: Shane Keating* (mod. conservative) +31.3%, 37.2% undecided

Ward 13: Diane Colley-Urquhart* (conservative) +22.3%, 32.5% undecided

Ward 14: Peter Demong* (conservative) +49.4%, 36.3% undecided

[Lachi]

Will these election tell us anything about just how f[ink]ed progressives could be at a provincial level come the next election?

[Hatman 🍁]

Will these election tell us anything about just how f[ink]ed progressives could be at a provincial level come the next election?

Well, they're non-partisan, but Nenshi losing would be a very bad sign. I'm sure the general provincial mood is not helping his bid for re-election.

[Hatman 🍁]

New Mainstreet poll:

Smith - 48%
Nenshi - 31%
Chabot - 6%

[Njall]

Will these election tell us anything about just how f[ink]ed progressives could be at a provincial level come the next election?

Well, they're non-partisan, but Nenshi losing would be a very bad sign. I'm sure the general provincial mood is not helping his bid for re-election.

The UCP and Kenney's allies are definitely trying to make their influence and level of organization felt at the municipal level this time around. It's even impacting our public school board elections.

New Mainstreet poll:

Smith - 48%
Nenshi - 31%
Chabot - 6%

These polls obviously aren't good news for Nenshi, but I can't shake the feeling that the polls are off somehow. The 18-34 year-old sample seems really skewed in favour of Smith, as it has him up 61%-25%. Just anecdotally, I'm not aware of many people in my age range, aside from some partisan conservative friends and acquaintances, who are supporting Smith.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, as a pollster, I am trying to figure out how they managed to get those numbers with a sizeable sample size too...

[Njall]

I've actually noticed that Mainstreet's been showing a trend of conservative-skewed 18-34 samples. I first picked up on this with their provincial polls, and it looks like it has spread to the municipal level. For example, their August provincial poll had the UCP +38% (53%-15%) over the NDP amongst 18-34 year olds including undecideds, and +45% (67%-22%) excluding undecideds. That was also from a relatively large sample of 682 respondents in that age group. By comparison, the results from respondents older than 65 was UCP +19% (40%-21%) including undecideds, and UCP +27% (56%-29%) excluding undecideds.

[Hatman 🍁]

could it be as something as simple as having the names reversed for their cell sample and not noticing? Something is very wrong with their poll...

[mgop]

How did Nenshi even get elected in a place like Calgary?

because of good old liberal divide and conquer. like 1992/96 clinton wins 3-way race where you have 2 conservative spliting votes.

[Hatman 🍁]

An interesting race is shaping up in Stratchona County; it is full of "also rans".
Here are the mayoral candidates:
-Linda Carr, current mayor. No party affiliation I can find, but she seems to be centre-right.
-David Dixon. Ran for mayor of North Vancouver in 2005. Running on a fairly left wing platform, but is more of a fringe candidate.
-Jacquie Fenske. Former PC MLA (2012-2015) for Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville
-Rod Frank. Was the Liberal candidate here in the 2015 federal election. Claims to have run on a "fiscal conservative and social progressive." platform... for the 2015 Liberals. Ha!
-Linda Osinchuk. Former mayor, but lost to Carr in a squeaker in 2013. Ran for the Wildrose in 2015, but lost. Interestingly, her PC challenger was also the former mayor, and the candidate Osinchuk beat to become mayor in 2010. Both of them lost to the NDP though!

[DL]

How did Nenshi even get elected in a place like Calgary?

because of good old liberal divide and conquer. like 1992/96 clinton wins 3-way race where you have 2 conservative spliting votes.

Wrong wrong wrong. First of all Calgary has had a string of centrist mayors with big “L” Liberal pedigrees. Second of all when Nenshi was first elected mayor he was one of two centrist candidates against one rightwing candidate Ric McIver. The woman who was a local news anchor and whose name escapes me was actually seen as more progressive than Nenshi and was backed by a lot of union and ndp types

[Hatman 🍁]

New Mainstreet poll:

Smith - 52%
Nenshi - 39%
Chabot - 6%

(undecideds removed). Still weird youth numbers, but Nenshi leads in the 35-49 cohort at least.

And they polled the Edmonton race too, for some reason:

Iveson - 46%
Koziak - 7%
Undecided - 35%

[Njall]

Two other polls to add some confusion to the picture of things in Calgary:

First, a poll from the LRT on the Green Foundation (a pro-transit advocacy group) released a poll conducted by AskingCanadians, which uses an online opt-in panel of people who sign up to fill out surveys in exchange for incentive program rewards like Aeroplan points. Most surveys are commercial market research though, not political. Anyways, the poll had Nenshi beating Smith 41%-26%, with 28% undecided. However, the poll did lead with questions gauging respondents' support for the Green Line LRT project (which Smith has said he'll revisit), which could have influenced respondents' answers.

Second, the Canadian Municipal Election Study (CMES) released their poll today. CMES is an academic research project focusing on municipal elections that is being conducted by a number of political scientists across the country, and will include as data surveys of voters and candidates in municipal elections from across Canada. Their poll was conducted by Forum Research, and appears to have been run online, and been completed by a panel recruited through random-phone-dialing. This poll had Nenshi beating Smith 50%-33%, with 12.5% undecided.