Look who's running in Alberta's election
There are 349 candidates but it's still a UCP-NDP race
I’m Dave Cournoyer and this is the Daveberta Substack.
We are mid-way through Alberta’s election campaign and at least one poll released over the weekend is suggesting things could be getting even more interesting. Abacus Data’s poll showed the NDP at 51% and UCP at 41% province-wide among decided voters, and the NDP with an 8-point lead in Calgary.
Rachel Notley’s supporters can be cautiously optimistic going into the third week of the campaign but they should remember that polls are snapshots and people can change their minds.
This Thursday’s televised leaders debate will give UCP leader Danielle Smith an opportunity to turn around her electoral fortunes.
Ahead of the debate, Smith has attempted to immunize herself from her own controversial comments, saying that her 27 years of political commentary will have no impact on the decisions she makes in the future.
As I’ve written before, the only poll that matters is the one on election day and the only other poll that matters is the one that Janet Brown does (so, hopefully we’ll see another Janet Brown poll before May 29!).
Lawn signs!
A huge thank you to everyone who upgraded their subscriptions and shared their names to get a limited-edition Daveberta election lawn sign! I will be in touch with you all soon to arrange a pickup for your new sign.
If you missed the deadline to enter to get a sign, please send me a note and I will let you know if more become available.
I hope you enjoy today’s article (keep scrolling), in which I share some thoughts on the official list of candidates released by Elections Alberta last week.
I’m also planning to be ramping up the number of articles I share on this Substack in the final two weeks of the campaign, so if you like what you read, share it with a friend or colleague, and feel free to post a comment below or send me an email with your feedback.
Thanks!
Dave
PS. I’ve been busy with election related commentary recently, including an interview with the Toronto Star about Smith’s Hitler comments and an in-depth discussion about Alberta’s election on the BC-based Politicoast Podcast.
Look who’s running in Alberta’s election
There are 349 candidates but it's still a UCP-NDP race
The official list of candidates was released by Elections Alberta at the end of last week. I’ve been tracking candidate nominations for this election quite closely over the past two years and shared some initial thoughts a few weeks ago. But now that the list of candidates is official, here’s a quick look at the slates on the ballot on May 29.
1. UCP and NDP only parties with full slates
There are 14 registered political parties and 349 nominated candidates running in this provincial election. This is drop from 492 candidates in the 2019 election and 400 candidates in 2015, and this is the first election since 1997 that there are less than 400 candidates running in a provincial election in Alberta.
The United Conservative Party and the Alberta NDP are the only parties running candidates in all of Alberta’s 87 ridings, so almost half of the candidates in the election are members of those two parties.
There are 41 Green Party candidates, marking the third largest slate in that party’s history. The Greens nominated 79 candidates in 2008 and 49 candidates in 2004.
The right-wing Solidarity Movement of Alberta has 38 candidates, the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition has 16 candidates, and the Independence Party has 14 candidates (I dive a little deeper into these small right-wing parties and how they got on the ballot further down in this post).
Despite running a full slate of 87 candidates in 2019, the centrist Alberta Party fell short by a mile this year. The party only managed to get candidates in 19 ridings.
And deeper in its decline is the Alberta Liberal Party, which has 13 candidates, the party’s slimmest slate since the 1940s. The Liberal Party formed Official Opposition from 1993 to 2012 but failed to elect any MLAs in 2019, marking the first election since 1982 that the Liberals were shut out of the Legislature.
The Advantage Party has 4 candidates, the Communist Party has 3, the Wildrose Independence Party has 2 and the Buffalo Party, Reform Party and Pro-Life Alberta Political Association each have one candidate running in this election.
There are 22 independent candidates who are not running under a party banner.
2. Women on the ballot
There are 44 women on the NDP’s slate of 87 candidates, slightly higher than the number of women who ran for the NDP in 2019. The UCP has 19 women candidates in 2023, down from 27 women candidates in 2019.
This is the second election in Alberta’s history where the leaders of the two main political parties are women and the third election where the incumbent Premier is a woman.
3. Where the party leaders are running
UCP leader Danielle Smith is running for re-election in Brooks-Medicine Hat. Smith was first elected as MLA for this southeast Alberta riding in a November 2022 by-election. She is facing NDP candidate Gwendoline Dirk and Alberta Party leader Barry Morishita in a rematch from the by-election. Smith previously served as MLA for Highwood from 2012 to 2015.
NDP leader Rachel Notley is running for re-election in Edmonton-Strathcona, where she has been elected four times since 2008. Notley was re-elected in 2019 with 72% of the vote. Voters in the central Edmonton riding have elected NDP MLAs in every election except one since 1986.
The other party leaders:
Green Party leader Jordan Wilkie is running in Edmonton-Rutherford.
Solidarity Movement of Alberta leader Artur Pawlowski is running in Calgary-Elbow.
Wildrose Loyalty Coalition leader Paul Hinman is running in Taber-Warner.
Liberal Party leader John Roggeveen is running in Calgary-Lougheed.
Advantage Party leader Marilyn Burns is running with Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland.
Communist Party leader Naomi Rankin is running in Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood. Rankin has run in every Alberta election since 1982.
Wildrose Independence Party leader Jeevan Mangat and Reform Party leader Randy Thorsteinson are running in Innisfail-Sylvan Lake.
Buffalo Party leader John Molberg and Pro-Life leader Murray Ruhl are not running in the election. The Independence Party of Alberta does not currently have a leader.
4. Seven 2 candidate races
With no third political party organizing a full slate of candidates, there are seven ridings with only a UCP and NDP candidate on the ballot.
Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock, Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, and West Yellowhead are considered safe UCP seats and Calgary-Bhullar-McCall and Edmonton-Mill Woods are safe NDP territory.
But Calgary-North and Calgary-North East are hotly contested between the two parties.
The NDP are hoping to pick up the two north Calgary ridings from the UCP. The absence of any third candidate who could pull a few dozen or hundred votes away from either party’s candidates could create an interesting dynamic in these races.
As I wrote a few weeks ago, the last time there was a provincial election race with only two candidates on the ballot was in 1997 when Progressive Conservative Gary Friedel and Liberal Bruce MacKeen ran in Peace River. Fridel was re-elected with 61 per cent of the vote.
Before that, you have to go back to 1986 to find another two candidate race (there were six in that election!).
5. Alberta’s cottage industry of right-wing political parties
Where did the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition and Solidarity Movement come from and how did they get on the ballot?
The production of small right-wing political parties might be one of Alberta’s most underrated cottage industries, and it can be hard to untangle.
I created a family tree of Alberta’s right-wing political parties that I’m sharing with paid subscribers today. It might not be perfect, because some of the transitions to new parties and different party names were official and some were just movements and defections of activists and supporters. But I think it pretty accurately depicts how the various parties split off from each other.
If any astute readers notice an error or omission in the family tree, please leave a comment below or send me an email.
Four new right-wing political parties are making their general election debut in this election.
The Wildrose Loyalty Coalition was launched by Paul Hinman on May 1. A former Wildrose Alliance MLA and party leader, Hinman was also leader of the Wildrose Independence Party until he was ousted from the role last year. Both his new and former Wildrose parties are making their general election debut.
The Wildrose Independence Party was founded in 2020 as a merger of the separatist Wexit Alberta group and the Freedom Conservative Party (formerly known as the Alberta First Party, the Separation Party, and the Western Freedom Party). Hinman led the party until 2022, when he was replaced by former Wildrose Alliance candidate Jeevan Mangat.
The Solidarity Movement of Alberta is led by controversial street preacher Artur Pawlowski, who was recently found guilty of mischief for his role in protests at the Coutts border crossing in 2022. Pawlowski was leader of the separatist Independence Party of Alberta until he was ousted from that role earlier this year.
The Buffalo Party became a registered political party in 2022 and is only running one candidate in this election.
There are three ways qualify to become a registered political party in Alberta:
The party holds 3 seats in the Legislative Assembly.
The party has endorsed candidates in at least half of the ridings in Alberta.
The party has completed a petition containing at least 8,473 names and signatures of eligible electors.
The Wildrose Loyalty Coalition and the Solidarity Movement became registered parties after endorsing candidates in more than half of Alberta’s ridings but many of those candidates dropped out or did not complete the candidate application process by the time of the May 11 entry deadline.
The Buffalo Party completed the petition processes, which is impressive, but then only nominated one candidate to run in the election. I listed the party among the small right-wing parties but it is a bit unclear how closely this party is associated with some of the more controversial positions the other parties on this list embrace.
Opposition to COVID-19 public health measures and Alberta separatism are staple issues in most of these parties’ political circles, as are conspiracy theories about globalism ranging from the World Economic Forum to 15-minute cities and beyond.
These smaller right-wing parties are not expected to elect any candidates to the Legislature in this election. But, in ridings hotly contested by the NDP and UCP, having candidates from smaller parties on the ballot could draw away tens or hundreds of votes from the main parties. These parties also retain the ability to issue generous tax receipts for donations that fund their political activities outside of the election period.