PC blue occupies swath of Alberta

The anticipated swing from Tory blue to to Wildrose green materialized in early results in southern Alberta, but faltered in the northern half of the province and major urban centres.

By geographic size, the Tories were leading by at least three-quarters in the province altogether, and in both Calgary and Edmonton.

As the first ridings began to declare winners, the Tories dominated northern Alberta, taking leads in the massive, though sparsely populated, ridings of Peace River, Lesser Slave Lake and Fort Mcmurray-conklin and Fort Mcmurray-wood Buffalo.

Besides the Tories, no other party had a lead within 600 kilometres of the oilsands.

Tory leads cut a wide blue swath from Grande Prairie, southeast through Edmonton and continued to Drumheller and the Saskatchewan border. The Tory success extended from Jasper in the west to Lloydminster in the east.

The Wildrose had some success in the first counts, with leads in areas northeast and northwest of Edmonton, in areas such as Barrhead, Westlock, Two Hills and Cold Lake.

However, those areas were only pockets of land. The Wildrose only put together a string of ridings together in the south.

Starting in the Rocky Mountain House and Lacombe areas and headed south, the Wildrose dominated rural ridings in early results. Only the Banff-cochrane riding remained blue in southern rural areas. Otherwise, Calgary was surrounded by the green of Danielle Smith’s party, though it did not extend into the city itself.

Around 9:30 p.m. the Tories were dominating leads in Calgary and Edmonton, though the NDP held leads in several ridings.

The two NDP incumbents, Rachel Notley and Brian Mason, had their winning ways declared early. The smaller parties picked up voted in east, central and west Edmonton. The Wildrose didn’t have a speck in the capital region.

In Calgary, early results were similar. The Tories lead or had won three-quarters of the city. However, it was the Liberals and Wildrose playing spoilers, with each doing well in a few ridings far-flung from each other. Liberal candidates were keeping pace in Calgary’s inner core, while the Wildrose were doing well in the northeast corner of the city. However, none of those leads were substantial in the early counts.

The NDP had no early presence in Calgary.