Conservatives poised to win next provincial election

SUPPORT FOR NDP HAS DROPPED

No matter who the leader, the United Conservative Party seems poised to win the next provincial election.

A new Alberta-wide poll shows support for the governing New Democrats has fallen to 19.3 per cent, while the new right-of-centre party is favoured by 55.6 per cent of decided voters.

With about 18 months until the next scheduled election, the Alberta Liberals’ support has grown to 12.8 per cent, according to the latest figures from the Citizen Society Research Lab. And the Alberta Party has inched up to 5.8 per cent.

But the Lethbridge-based survey, conducted earlier this month, shows support for the new Conservatives falls short of the pre-merger numbers posted for the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose Party separately a year ago — then, a combined total of 64.1 per cent.

“As is to be expected, the new United Conservative Party has not captured all the preferences of the former legacy party supporters,” principal investigator Faron Ellis notes.

Some voters have switched their allegiance to another party.

“But it has captured most of those preferences,” he points out.

“In doing so, the UCP has surged to the top of Albertans’ voter preferences with a clear majority of decided Alberta voters.”

The “undecided” numbers have risen to 13.1 per cent meanwhile, up from 9.1 per cent a year ago.

Support for the UCP is reported highest in northern Alberta (61.9 per cent of decided voters) followed by Calgary at 60.7 per cent. For the governing NDP, Edmonton remains their strongest base with 29.4 per cent — but the UCP now claims 42.8 per cent of the capital city’s decided voters.

Looking at the survey’s demographic picture, Ellis says women (54.2 per cent) are almost as likely as men (57.4 per cent) to vote UCP.

“United Conservative Party support is broad, deep and constitutes a majority of all decided voters in all but one demographic group,” he observes.

That’s with university graduates.

Ellis says the weighted sample, 1,481 Alberta adults reached by cell phone and landline, is considered accurate within 2.55 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

But those numbers could change significantly between now and election day in 2019, he cautions.

“With a year and a half remaining before another general election, much can change — including the public’s perception of the new UCP as it elects a new leader and formulates its policy platform.

“But for now, the UCP is riding a wave of popularity that would see it replace the NDP with a substantial majority government if Albertans were indeed voting this fall.”