Survey says voters wanted change

Dislike for Prentice spurred choice

When Albertans elected a whole new set of NDP bums to sit in the legislature seats, they were mainly driven by an urge to throw the old bums out, a post- election survey says.

Ninety- three per cent of voters said wanting change influenced the result more than liking the New Democrats, says the poll of 1,000 Albertans by Abacus Data.

Even among people who voted for the NDP, that proportion was the same.

Respondents to the online research survey were almost twice as likely to say voters cooled on nowformer Tory leader Jim Prentice than to say they warmed to Rachel Notley, the province’s first NDP premier.

Sixty- two per cent of Albertans said the results were about anger, compared with 38 per cent who believed they were about hope. NDP voters were far more likely to say the outcome was driven by hope and Notley’s likability.

And despite the Bill Clinton- era catchphrase “it’s the economy, stupid,” it really wasn’t in Alberta. Survey respondents believe that leadership and other factors were bigger issues than the economy and budget. This factor likely proved fatal for the Prentice Tories, who were running on the strength of their financial stewardship amid an oil price slump.

“It was a ‘ change from something’ rather than a ‘ change to something’ election, and also more about the qualities people were looking for in a leader than specific policy ideas,” Bruce Anderson and David Coletto of Abacus said in their survey report.

“Those who voted NDP clearly warmed to Rachel Notley, while many others who left the PC’s for the Wildrose were expressing disappointment in Jim Prentice.”

The NDP won 54 seats to form a majority government, while the Wildrose will remain official opposition with 21 seats. The Tories’ streak of a dozen straight election wins ended with a third- place finish and 10 seats, even though the long- governing party had the secondmost votes ( 27.8 per cent, to the NDP’s 40.6 per cent).

This Abacus poll was conducted between May 6 ( the day after the election) and May 11. Polling firms are not permitted to state margins of error for online surveys, but a typical 1,000- person random sample survey is deemed accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Survey respondents of all political stripes said the decision had nothing to do with gender. Notley was the only mainstream party with a female leader, and will be sworn in later this month as Alberta’s second woman premier.