Parties split along north-south axis: poll

Danielle Smith and her Wildrose party are surging even further ahead of Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives on the campaign trail, but the battle is shaping up to create a north-south provincial split, a new poll shows.

The Leger Marketing survey, commissioned by the Cal

gary Herald and the Edmonton Journal, of 986 eligible voters across Alberta, shows the Wildrose has steadily increased its support as the campaign has rolled into its second week.

Among decided voters, Wildrose has 41 per cent of support while the Tories have 34 per cent. The NDP are polling at 12 per cent, the Liberals at 10 per cent and the Alberta Party at two per cent.

The online survey was conducted between Monday and Wednesday.

The poll also shows the Tories continue to lead the Wildrose by a significant margin in Edmonton, but are lagging behind the Wildrose in Calgary and the rest of the province, where more than half of decided voters are giving their support to the Wildrose.

“If the election splits this way, there will be a real northsouth divide in the legislature and that’s going to cause some problems,” said Leger vicepresident Ian Large.

In Edmonton, the Tories lead the Wildrose 37 per cent to 25 per cent, while in Calgary the Wildrose leads the Tories 47 per cent to 34 per cent.

In the rest of Alberta, 54 per cent of Albertans support the Wildrose compared to 30 per cent for the Tories.

“This doesn’t bode well for a representative legislature after April 23,” said Large.

As a non-random Internet survey, the Leger Marketing poll’s margin of error is not reported, but Large said a probability sample of this size would result in a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error for the regional findings is 5.5 for Edmonton, 5.4 for Calgary, and 5.2 for the rest of Alberta.