Nenshi's NDP starts nominating candidates for next Alberta election
Early March candidate meetings scheduled in Calgary and Edmonton ridings
With rumours of an early provincial election circulating since last year, the Alberta NDP looks like it will be the first political party out of the gate to nominate candidates ahead of the next vote.
The NDP website lists candidate nomination meetings scheduled in Edmonton-Glenora on March 3, Calgary-Elbow on March 4, Calgary-Klein on March 5, Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview on March 6 and Calgary-Edgemont on March 7.
All five of these ridings are represented by NDP MLAs who will be seeking re-election if they secure their party’s nominations.
Longtime Daveberta readers will know that I am keenly interested in tracking candidate nominations ahead of provincial and federal elections in Alberta, so I am pleased to share with you that I am continuing this tradition as we approach the next election.
The next provincial election is scheduled to happen in October 2027 but there are plenty of indications that Premier Danielle Smith could decide to call an early vote to secure another majority government for her United Conservative Party. The UCP leads in fundraising and, despite the threat of a separatist referendum and increasing unhappiness with the direction the province is headed, public opinion polls suggest the governing party could win a comfortable majority.
The final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission recommending a new electoral map is expected to be released in March but the rumours of a potential early provincial election have likely convinced the NDP not to wait for the new riding boundaries to start the nomination and candidate recruitment process.
If the new boundaries are implemented before the next election then its likely the NDP would renominate any already nominated candidates into newly redrawn ridings.
Edmonton-Glenora
NDP MLA Sarah Hoffman is running for the nomination in Edmonton-Glenora, a riding she has represented since 2015. The central Edmonton riding swung back and forth between the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals in the 1990s and 2000s, but Hoffman has turned the riding into an NDP stronghold. She was re-elected in 2023 with 69.2 per cent of the vote.
Hoffman served as Minister of Health from 2015 to 2019 and placed third in the 2024 NDP leadership race. She current serves as the Official Opposition critic for Hospital and Surgical Health Facilities.
The boundaries commission interim report recommended the creation of a new Edmonton-Glenora-Riverview riding that included the west portion of the current Edmonton-Riverview riding.
Calgary-Elbow
A nomination meeting in Calgary-Elbow is scheduled for March 4 and MLA Samir Kayande is listed as the only candidate seeking the nomination. Kayande was first elected in 2023 and was considered a strong addition to the NDP slate because of his experience as an energy analyst and background in chemical engineering and business administration.
This riding was home to the 10th closest race in the 2023 election, with Kayande defeating UCP candidate Chris Davis by a narrow 3 points.
Kayande’s election marked the first time the NDP had ever won this southwest Calgary riding, which was previously represented by Ralph Klein from 1989 to 2007 and Alison Redford from 2008 to 2014. The riding is also the only ever to elect an Alberta Party MLA, when Greg Clark won it in 2015. Clark was defeated in 2019 by UCP candidate Doug Schweitzer, who served until his resignation in 2022.
Kayande currently serves as the NDP Caucus’ Chair of Analytics.
Calgary-Klein
MLA Lizette Tejada is seeking her party’s nomination to run for re-election for a second term in this riding in north central Calgary. Tejada was first elected in 2023 when she defeated UCP MLA and cabinet minister Jeremy Nixon with a 4.2 point margin of victory. Tejada previously worked as a constituency manager in the office of neighbouring Calgary-Mountain View MLA Kathleen Ganley and was nominated over four other candidates in a second nomination vote held in the riding after Marilyn North Peigan stepped down as the party’s candidate in 2022.
She currently serves as the NDP’s critic for Immigration and Multiculturalism.
Edmonton-Beverly Clareview
NDP MLA Peggy Wright is running for her party’s nomination in this northeast Edmonton riding. A former assistant principal and president of the Alberta NDP, Wright was first elected in 2023, succeeding three-term MLA Deron Bilous.
Wright was elected in 2023 with a 19 point margin of victory over UCP candidate Luke Suvanto. She currently serves as the NDP Labour Critic and Vice-chair of the Official Opposition Caucus.
Wright has deep family connections to the NDP in Alberta. Her father Keith Wright helped Grant Notley found the Youth Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Club at the U of A in the 1959, which was nicknamed “Notley’s Motley Crew,” according to Howard Leeson’s biography of Notley. Her father ran as the CCF candidate in Strathcona-Centre in the 1959 election and was elected president of the national NDP youth wing in 1961. Her mother, Kathleen Wright, was a longtime NDP activist and stood as a provincial candidate in Edmonton-Gold Bar in 1979 and Edmonton-Avonmore in 1982.
This northeast Edmonton riding has a long history of representation by the NDP stretching back to the 1980s when city councillor Ed Ewasiuk first won the Edmonton-Beverly riding. Ewasiuk represented the riding from 1986 to 1993, former party leader Ray Martin was the MLA from 2004 to 2008, and Bilous was the NDP MLA for the riding from 2012 to 2023.
Calgary-Edgemont
MLA Julia Hayter is running for the NDP nomination to seek re-election in Calgary-Edgemont. This riding was home to the 6th closest race of the 2023 election when Hayter defeated UCP MLA Prasad Panda by 1.2 points in a rematch from 2019. She currently serves as the NDP critic for the for Status of Women.
The NDP’s chances in these ridings?
Winning re-election in Beverly-Clareview and Glenora shouldn’t be difficult for Wright and Hoffman, but the Calgary ridings could be more challenging. The NDP will need to build on their Calgary gains from the 2023 election if they have any hope of electing enough MLAs to form government in the next election. Winning ridings like Elbow, Edgemont, and Klein will be key to this.
The ability to expand the NDP’s base in Calgary was one of the key things that convinced party members to overwhelmingly choose former three-term Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi as party leader in 2024. But so far most polls suggest the party’s support in the city has either plateaued or experienced a decline, which is not a good sign if they want to defeat Smith’s UCP in the next election.
The NDP’s narrow path to victory in 2023 ran straight through Calgary and it could again in 2026 or 2027.
Rachel Notley’s NDP came very close to pulling it off by winning more seats and more votes than the UCP in Alberta’s largest city, but it still fell short of winning the extra handful of suburban Calgary ridings needed to form a government.
Unless Nenshi’s NDP can figure out how to appeal to voters in enough ridings outside the big cities in smaller cities like Airdrie, Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer, and in the commuter communities surrounding Edmonton, they will be forced to rely on those extra Calgary seats to win the next election.
The NDP has brought in outside help to push them over the top. The party announced late last year that it had hired experienced campaign manager Mike Burton to run the party’s campaign in the next election.
Burton served as field director for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s campaign for the federal Liberal leadership in March 2025 and previously served as Chief of Staff to Liberal cabinet minister Mark Miller from 2019 to 2023 and worked for Amarjeet Sohi during his time in the federal cabinet. He was Sohi’s campaign manager in Edmonton Mill Woods in the 2015 election.
Are any NDP MLAs not running for re-election?
Aside from Hoffman, there are 11 other NDP MLAs who were first elected in the NDP’s 2015 breakthrough election and are currently serving in their third terms in the Legislature. It would not be surprising if some of them decided to not seek re-election after more than a decade in elected office.
It would also be normal for Nenshi, as the party’s new leader, to recruit new candidates in winnable ridings to signal renewal of the NDP.
The NDP’s longest-serving current MLA is David Eggen, who has represented the Edmonton-North West riding since 2019 and previously represented Edmonton-Calder from 2004 to 2008 and 2012 to 2019. Eggen has not publicly announced his plans for the next election.
Which UCP MLAs are running for re-election?
Twelve incumbent UCP MLAs have signalled their plans to run for re-election by registering Prospective Candidate Associations, a new mechanism put in place by the UCP government that allows aspiring candidates to fundraise for their campaigns ahead of actually being nominated by their parties.
