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)

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Njall]

Unfortunately, being that I've had to spend most of my time focusing on Calgary's election due to my involvement in one of the City Council campaigns, I haven't had much time to brush up on Edmonton's election and give some background for those who are reading this thread. Luckily, in looking for background material, I've found that CBC has us covered with analysis of the City Council races, Wards 1-6 here, and Wards 7-12 here. Any good summary of the Council races that I could provide would likely end up being a lower-quality ripoff of those analyses by John Brennan, who is an Edmonton-based political scientist.

It will come as no surprise that most of the focus this election in Edmonton has been on the Council races, since first-term Mayor Don Iveson is expected to easily cruise to re-election. Within the Council races, much of the focus has been on the three open seats: Ward 4 in Northeast Edmonton, and Wards 5 and 9 in Southwest Edmonton. In the others wards, most (if not all) of the incumbents are expected to be re-elected, although a couple of them are in for some tough fights.

[Njall]

I think municipal elections are harder to predict due to lower turnout and lower response rate.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Nenshi loses, but nor would I be surprised if he is re-elected.  I've found also by-election or riding polls are often wildly off too.  Provincial and federal polls tend to have a better track record for being accurate.

I've found that as well, but it's interesting that Calgary would be much harder to poll at an overall municipal level when it essentially has the same population as Manitoba, and provincial polling in places like that seem to do better. Could simply be a function of the party system at a provincial level, I suppose.

[Njall]

In Calgary, as of 3:00pm, 85,984 people have voted. Including the 74,965 people who voted in advance, 160,949 Calgarians have voted so far. This equates to a voter turnout of 24.14% as of 3pm on election day.

As a note, polls in Calgary were/are open today between 10am and 8pm, so 3pm is the halfway point of polls being open. Because polls opened after most people were at work, those on the ground are expecting a large rush in the evening once people get home from work.

[Njall]

The pollsters who are the most confident and cocky are usually the one's who are the worst and end up having to eat crow after election day.

That is sooo true. Remember Forum Research when they confidently predicted that the Liberal would win Brandon-Souris by 30 points???

I don't remember them being quite so awful as Quito Maggi has been. And he is being quite insufferable today on Twitter. I mean, if it was me and I saw how strange our age breaks were, I would tread very lightly about our numbers, as deep down I would have no confidence in them.

It wasn't just today too, he's been doing that since their first poll came out. The way he was reacting to political scientists and other ordinary Twitter commentators (including me at one point) was astounding for someone in his position.

[Njall]

Final results:

Nenshi - 199,122 (51.4%)
Smith - 169,367 (43.7%)
Chabot - 11,945 (3.1%)
Other - 6,872 (1.8%)

Turnout: 58.1%

That's a new record turnout if I'm not mistaken. Higher than 2010 by about 5 points, and 19-20 points higher than last election.

[Njall]

Hey njall, what do you think of these names I've given to Calgary's ward?

Overall, I like them. Some notes:

Ward 1: 'Bow' is an appropriate name, but could be confusing since the Bow River runs through much of the city (and Bow Trail is outside the ward). A more appropriate name could be something like 'Bowness-Tuscany' after two major communities in the ward.

Ward 2: This one doesn't really make sense to a Calgarian. I don't know why the provincial riding around here is called Calgary-Foothills, but the actual geographic place in Calgary that's called 'Foothills' is an industrial park in the southeast. A better name could be something like 'Crowfoot-Symons Valley.'

Ward 3: 'Nose Creek' works. Another potential name could be 'Northern Hills,' since all communities in the ward aside from Hidden Valley belong to the Northern Hills Community Association.

Ward 4: 'Nose Hill' works.

Ward 5: 'McCall' works, but could be made more descriptive by tacking 'Saddle Ridge' or 'Saddletowne' onto the name.

Ward 6: The name I've generally given this ward is 'East Springbank-Signal Hill,' since a number of the western communities are part of the East Springbank Area Structure Plan.

Ward 7: Confederation Park is only a boundary point for the ward, so it may not be the best place to draw a name from. Something like 'University-Fort Calgary' or 'Kensington-University' would work better IMO.

Ward 8: 'Currie' could work, but a name that could be preferable would be along the lines of 'Connaught-Lincoln Park,' which covers more of the geographic area and reach of the ward. Connaught is the Ward 8 portion of the densely-populated Beltline south of downtown, and Lincoln Park refers to a community in the southern part of the Ward, which (amongst other things) wholly contains the Mount Royal University campus.

Ward 9: 'Millican-Forest Lawn' works. The meaning of the 'Millican' name may be lost on some though, so changing 'Millican' to 'Inglewood' could be better.

Ward 10: 'Sunridge' is an appropriate name, potentially with 'Marlborough' tacked on to it.

Ward 11: 'Glenmore' is good for the southern part of the ward. Including a reference to the northern part by tacking on something like 'Victoria Park' could make it better.

Ward 12: 'Shepard' is a good name. Tacking 'Seton' onto it may make it more geographically descriptive.

Ward 13: Like Ward 2, 'Shaw' isn't the best name in terms of describing where the ward is. A better name would be 'Fish Creek West,' or potentially 'Woodcreek-Silverado.'

Ward 14: 'Fish Creek' is good. If you called Ward 13 'Fish Creek West,' this could be changed to 'Fish Creek East.'

[Njall]

What about Glenmore-Elbow for Ward 11?

Coming up with a name for Ward 7 was the hardest one, so I just went with the federal riding name.

Calgary is quite strange it that it has such small neighbourhoods and seldomly has distinct names for neighbourhood clusters. It makes for coming up with names rather difficult.

Glenmoore-Elbow would also work. I agree that it's pretty difficult to come up with names around here. Even provincially with smaller districts, it's pretty tough.

[Njall]

Mainstream Research has released its internal report into its failures during the Calgary municipal election.

"Mainstreet Research says its internal investigation into the polling failures that led the firm to wrongly predict Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi would lose the October municipal election concludes they were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors.

This includes a failure to poll in non-official languages, a tendency among Nenshi voters not to respond to the firm's polls, and — most crucially — a misgauging of youth voter turnout and their voting intentions, Mainstreet said in a release Monday morning."