Weekly Writ for Mar. 27: Alberta NDP leadership race bombshell
Weekly Writ for Mar. 27: Alberta NDP leadership race bombshell
New polling on the leadership contest as well as where the federal Conservatives stand in Manitoba. Is Winnipeg bucking the trend?
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.
Yesterday, the Alberta NDP leadership race was shaken up by the withdrawal of Rakhi Pancholi from the contest and her endorsement of former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi.
I’ll get into the implications of what this signals for the leadership campaign in a minute, but first let’s delve into some fresh new polling from Abacus Data.
The numbers suggest two things. First, that Nenshi gives the NDP the best chance to be competitive with the United Conservatives today (but ask me again in 2027). Second, that Nenshi does not guarantee the NDP a ticket back into the premier’s office.
The poll shows a wide gap between the UCP and the NDP, wider than we saw in recent surveys published by Pallas Data and Léger. It gives the UCP the lead with 55%, 15 points ahead of the New Democrats. Another 4% goes to smaller parties.
That gap is nearly twice the UCP’s winning margin of 8.6 points in last year’s provincial election.
Regionally, the NDP leads by 11 points in Edmonton while the UCP leads by eight points in Calgary and 38 points in the rest of the province. It adds up to another easy majority victory for Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives.
But what if we substitute the names of the NDP leadership contestants in for Rachel Notley, still officially the leader of the party?
It doesn’t get much better.
Abacus found that nearly every candidate does worse. The one who doesn’t make the margin worse between the UCP and the NDP is Naheed Nenshi.
With Nenshi as leader, the New Democrats would still lose by 15 points (but support for other parties more than doubles to 9%, suggesting some soft support that could be gotten from that direction).
Sarah Hoffman loses by 22 points, Rakhi Pancholi loses by 28 points, Kathleen Ganley loses by 27 points and Gil McGowan loses by 30 points.
Now, these are hypotheticals and the other contestants aren’t nearly as well known as Nenshi. But it’s clear that the NDP would have some ground to make up if they chose someone other than the former Calgary mayor.
Broken down by region, Nenshi improves the party’s position in his home city, cutting the current eight-point deficit by seven points. The situation worsens with the other contestants, however. Hoffman widens the gap to 14 points while Ganley increases it to 16 points.
Outside of the two big cities, Nenshi keeps the NDP’s support stable. The others preside over a drop of at least seven points.
Edmonton is a different story, however.
All of the tested candidates cause the NDP’s support to drop. The 11-point lead currently enjoyed by Notley slides to a one-point lead for Hoffman, a one-point deficit for Nenshi and a four-point deficit for Ganley.
This is worse news for Nenshi than it is the others, though. Nenshi is already well-known and Edmontonians have an opinion of him. He doesn’t boost the party, and probably loses it several seats on the suburban edges and in the so-called donut around the city. Hoffman and Ganley (and the others) cost the NDP support, but much of that can likely be attributed to their low name recognition. Edmonton is NDP-friendly, and Hoffman and Ganley are rather typical New Democrats. Their chances of working themselves back into a position similar to Notley’s in Edmonton are good — Nenshi might struggle more.
That is the risk and reward with Nenshi. Poll after poll suggests that Nenshi helps the New Democrats in Calgary and could boost them beyond their performance in 2023. They don’t suggest he has much of an impact on their prospects outside of the two big cities, but those prospects were dim anyway. He could lose them support in Edmonton. Would he lose enough to cancel out potential gains in Calgary?
And, more importantly, does he have what it takes to maintain his positive ratings straight through to the next campaign?
He starts out in a relatively better position than Smith. More Albertans have a positive impression of Smith (38%) than they do Nenshi (31%), but Nenshi’s negative scores (23%) are almost half of Smith’s (40%). If he can keep his ratings positive, that alone would be an improvement on how Albertans viewed Rachel Notley in 2023.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on the bombshell development in the Alberta NDP leadership race.
Lots of federal polls, with special spotlights on Manitoba, Quebec and British Columbia. We also have some provincial numbers for those three, as well as in Ontario, and nationally on the carbon tax.
Fewer than 70 seats for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals if the election were held today.
Two familiar faces contest a Saskatchewan seat in this week’s riding profile.
The 1930 Alberta Liberal leadership contest in the #EveryElectionProject.