Polling plunge a five-alarm fire for Nenshi's NDP
Opposition shouldn't panic - it should make smart changes
The three provincial by-elections are in full swing and the NDP are eager to have leader Naheed Nenshi join their MLAs in the Legislature. Two new polls will add extra urgency to the NDP’s efforts to hold on to two of those seats and have Nenshi hit the ground running when he is elected in Edmonton-Strathcona on June 23.
There has been plenty of discussion about Nenshi’s visibility and the NDP’s second place spot in the polls since well-respected pollster Janet Brown released a new round of CBC-commissioned surveys last week.
Province-wide support for the UCP and NDP hadn’t changed dramatically, with the UCP at 52 percent and NDP at 38 percent (10 percent are orphan or undecided voters), but Brown’s poll showed the UCP gaining public support in Calgary and Edmonton at the expense of the NDP since the 2023 election.
Much more troubling for the NDP is a poll released by Abacus Data yesterday showing the UCP with 58 percent support and Nenshi’s party trailing with 32 percent (the same poll said 69 percent of Albertans would vote “no” in a referendum question about sovereignty).
The NDP should avoid panicking in response to these two polls but it’s hard to see this as anything but a five alarm fire for Alberta’s opposition. The gains in support being made by the UCP in the two big cities should be deeply concerning for the NDP, especially with a by-election happening in suburban Edmonton-Ellerslie.
In response to Brown’s polling, Ottawa-based writer
, who has published some remarkably good analysis of Alberta politics in the past, wrote that “…Nenshi has yet to give anybody a sense of what a Nenshi NDP looks like - either how it is different to the Notley party or how it is going to bring the province together.”And commentator
, a former journalist and longtime political writer, commented that “[w]e can’t expect Mr. Nenshi to ship out, but he does need to shape up.”The next six months will be critical for Nenshi’s NDP. Although he is a familiar name after his 12 years as Mayor of Calgary and has been leader of the NDP for almost a year, a by-election win in Edmonton-Strathcona will be a critical opportunity to reintroduce himself to Albertans.
Nenshi is facing a tough opponent in Premier Danielle Smith.
Smith is an exceptional communicator (just listen to her recent interview on the Herle Burly podcast), a shrewd politician and someone who campaigns like no other premier I’ve seen in Alberta. She knows the issues that activate her base and she very skilled at sucking up all the oxygen in a political debate.
Smith’s agenda is radical, divisive, and not at all what she campaigned on in the last election but she’s definitely not a status quo premier. Meanwhile, the NDP has been left looking like they are defending the status quo, which is a problem if voters are looking for change.
The two polls are shocking, but I am not as doom and gloom about the NDP as some of my contemporaries who write about Alberta politics.
When I first got involved in politics more than two decades ago, the very idea that Alberta could have an opposition of 38 MLAs seemed impossible. When I worked for the Alberta Liberal Party in the mid-2000s, the party only once broke the 30 percent mark in a province-wide poll.
So compared to opposition parties during most of Alberta’s political history, today’s NDP is not starting off from a bad position - but it’s clear that big things need to change if the party wants its support to go up and not down.
Looking ahead, there are a lot of opportunities available to Nenshi’s NDP. Here are five opportunities that immediately come to mind:
Albertans are facing an affordability crisis and they need an opposition party to be the champion of lowering the cost of living. Nenshi and NDP MLAs should start every day by asking themselves the question “how can we make life more affordable for working-class Alberta families?” and then they should spend the rest of their day talking all about it, all the time.
In the debate about Alberta separatism, Nenshi has positioned the NDP as the “Stand up for Canada” party. Now he needs to appeal to that significant group of Albertans who want our province to remain in Canada but also think we could get a better deal out of Confederation. Canada isn’t perfect and neither is the relationship between the provinces and the federal government. In this debate, the status quo isn’t going to be good enough. Nenshi should come up with some concrete and aspirational ideas aimed at improving Alberta’s position within Canada.
The allegations made in the Dodgy Contracts Scandal, which the NDP has dubbed “Corrupt Care,” reek of corruption and political interference but it doesn’t always need to be the NDP’s central focus. Recent polling suggests the scandal has not caught the attention of voters, probably because the allegations are complicated and involve a web of political figures and confusing business arrangements. More from this scandal is guaranteed to break, so the NDP should keep the coals hot but they probably shouldn’t make it their central focus.
When Nenshi ran for the NDP leadership his campaign gained momentum through a series of town hall meetings with his supporters across the province. These meetings helped galvanize his position as the frontrunner in that race, attracted a lot of interested Albertans, and helped show a side of Nenshi that was fun, entertaining, and punchy. Getting Nenshi back on the town hall circuit could help reignite that spark and Stampede season is a perfect place to start.
Being mayor of the province’s largest city meant that for 12 years, anytime Nenshi wanted to speak to the media, journalists would be there to listen and report what he said. Being Leader of the Official Opposition takes more work to get attention and connect with voters, but with more effort, persistence, humility, and a focus on the issues that matter to Albertans, breaking through is not impossible. So get out there and hustle!
Daveberta on West of Centre Podcast: I had a fun time on this week’s episode of CBC’s West of Centre Podcast. There’s so much to talk about in Alberta politics and it was a real pleasure to join host Kathleen Petty and fellow panelists in Calgary and Laura Osman in Ottawa.
Nenshi on the Daveberta Podcast
Naheed Nenshi has twice been a guest on the Daveberta Podcast. Subscribers who have recently starting following Daveberta might enjoy catching up on these two episodes, which include some pretty engaging discussions about Alberta politics.
By-election updates
There are by-elections happening in Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Strathcona and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills on June 23. Here are some of the latest updates from those campaigns and more Alberta politics updates for paid subscribers.
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