Liberals win the election but Alberta stays Conservative blue

Conservatives win 34 of 37 seats, Liberals win 2, NDP 1

Pierre Poilievre delivers his election night concession speech to supporters (screenshot: Conservative Party of Canada / Facebook)

One of Daveberta’s first rules of Alberta politics is to never underestimate the Conservatives, and that rule appears to have held true last night as votes in the federal election were counted across the province.

At the time I am publishing this, Conservative Party candidates are elected in 34 of 37 ridings in Alberta. This makes them a significant block in what will be a 144 MP Conservative Opposition in Ottawa. This is a larger Conservative caucus than existed before this election but falls far short of the huge majority government the Conservatives were expecting Pierre Poilievre would lead them to only a few months ago. The Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Mark Carney were re-elected with 168 seats, including two in Alberta.

Here are the national seat totals (pending recounts):

• Liberal: 168

• Conservative: 144

• Bloc Quebecois: 23

• NDP: 7

• Green: 1

While the Liberals only won two seats in Alberta, some of the party’s candidates placed strong seconds in ridings in Calgary and Edmonton and saw their province-wide vote jump to 27.8 percent — the party’s best showing in Alberta in almost 60 years. The Conservatives saw their support jump to 63.7 percent province-wide, with the party’s candidates racking up huge majorities in rural ridings outside of the two big cities. The NDP finished with 6.2 percent in Alberta, roughly a quarter of what the party earned in the last election.

By my count, at least 13 Conservative candidates were elected with the support of more than 70 percent of voters in their ridings. It also looks like Battle River—Crowfoot Conservative Damien Kurek will keep the crown of representing the strongest Conservative riding in Alberta with 82 percent of the votes.

The only non-Conservatives elected in Alberta last night are rookie Liberals Corey Hogan in Calgary Confederation and Eleanor Olszewski in Edmonton Centre, and NDP MP Heather McPherson, who was re-elected to a third term as MP for Edmonton Strathcona.

A Conservative sweep of Alberta is no surprise. That party has dominated the province for 20 years and has extensive political infrastructure at both the federal and provincial levels. But it was widely believed that the Liberals under Carney’s leadership had a chance of winning a handful of seats in Alberta. Carney visited the province twice during the election campaign, making one final stop in his childhood home of Edmonton on Sunday night to support Mayor Amarjeet Sohi’s campaign in Edmonton Southeast.

Sohi was defeated by Conservative Jagsharan Singh Mahal.

As the two MPs from the governing party in the province, it can be expected that Hogan and Olszewski will find themselves with cabinet roles or parliamentary responsibilities. This gives the governing Liberals an opportunity to reset their relationship with Albertans — a role that might be particularity well-suited to Hogan, a whip-smart political strategist, communicator and podcaster who worked as the head of the Alberta government’s communications branch under premiers Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney.

It doesn’t look like the two rookie Liberals will be joined by their party’s only incumbent MP from Alberta. Liberal MP George Chahal appears to have been defeated by Dalwinder Gill in Calgary McKnight, extending the curse of no Liberal MP ever being able to get re-elected in Calgary.

McPherson will be one of seven NDP MPs returning to Ottawa and many political watchers were talking about her leadership prospects long before Jagmeet Singh announced his resignation last night. She won’t be joined in Ottawa by her caucus-mate Blake Desjarlais, who was defeated by Conservative Kerry Diotte in a rematch of their 2021 race in Edmonton Griesbach.

Out of the province, it looks like Poilievre has lost his seat in Carleton to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy, and that former Calgary-Varsity NDP MLA Stephanie McLean was elected as the next Liberal MP for the Vancouver Island riding of Esquimalt–Saanich–Sooke.

More election analysis coming soon

I will take a closer look at the federal election results in Alberta and will have a more detailed analysis of the vote to share in the next few days.

I am watching closely to see how Premier Danielle Smith and United Conservative Party MLAs react to the results, especially in light of her threats of a national unity crisis and continued stateside charm offensive. I am also watching how the Alberta NDP react to the results, with the party’s convention happening this upcoming weekend and by-elections expected to be called soon in Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona.

Tune in to CBC Radio’s Alberta at Noon call-in show today where I will join other guests to talk about the election results.

I am excited to be recording a new episode of the Daveberta Podcast today where we plan to dive into the election results and what they mean for Alberta politics. Daveberta Podcast episodes are available exclusively for paid subscribers, so sign up if you’d like to listen.