Former MLA David Eggen has declared his intention to seek the NDP nomination in Edmonton-Glenora for the next provincial election. Mr. Eggen was first elected as the MLA for Edmonton-Calder in 2004 and served as the NDPs environment critic. In 2008, he was narrowly defeated in a close race with PC candidate Doug Elniski. Since then, he has served as Executive Director of the Friends of Medicare.
Mr. Eggen will likely face off with Service Alberta Minister Heather Klimchuk (if she seeks re-election). Minister Klimchuk was elected in 2008 when she defeated Liberal MLA Reverend Bruce Miller in a hotly contested race. The Liberals have yet to announce their Glenora candidate, but have elected MLAs in the riding from 1993 to 2001 and 2004 to 2008.
Since 2001, each election in Glenora and Calder has been decided by less than 500 votes. Here are the combined results for the new Glenora boundaries from the past two provincial elections (see the picture above for the new boundaries with the poll-by-poll results from 2008):
2008 Election
PC: 4,738
Lib 4,405
ND: 2,677
Grn: 477
WR: 219
2004 Election
Lib: 4,875
NDP: 4,521
PC: 3,989
AA: 371
Grn: 231
SC: 88
In 2008, the vote turnout in the two constituencies were 40% in Calder and 42% in Glenora. Both the Liberals and PCs have held solid bases of support in Glenora for decades and the NDP had been less of a factor until the two recent elections.
In 2004, the NDP focused their resources behind Mr. Eggen in Calder and former Alberta Teachers’ Association President Larry Booi in Glenora. While Mr. Eggen was elected in a close race with PC MLA Brent Rathgeber, Mr. Booi placed second in a tight three-way race between PC MLA Drew Hutton and Reverend Miller. In 2008, the NDP focused less resources on Glenora in 2008 and fell to third place.
With a strong candidate like Mr. Eggen and two years to campaign before the next election, the NDP could be back in contention for this riding in the next election. In a province-wide election that could be dominated by the PCs and Wildrose Alliance, this riding could be only one of the handful that the NDP are seriously in competition for.
Welcome to battleground Edmonton-Glenora.
8 replies on “electoral battleground: edmonton-glenora.”
One important thing to note about the NDP’s 2008 campaign in Glenora is that the candidate who had been campaigning in the riding for quite some time before the election ultimately had to back out close to the election date. If the candidate who ended up replacing him had more time, and been able to build up some more name recognition in the constituency, the NDP’s share of the vote when compared to 2004 may not have dropped as much.
It hurts to think of how simple and effective changing to instant runoff voting would be. All the ridings would stay the same, every Albertan would have their same relationship to their MLA, you’d just avoid this kind of vote-splitting in a few urban ridings. And it’d be so easily done.
Thanks for posting this. Lets watch to see if the boundaries commission make a change to Glenora as a result of this announcement! They better not!
Oh, and if you take the new Glenora boundaries and add the 2008 results from the Calder areas, and the 2004 results from the Glenora ares, you get an even more interesting result.
NDP on top, albeit only by a couple hundred votes, with the tories in third, where they belong. And that is without a Wildrose influence!
Good news — the Leg needs David Eggen. Nice guy, smart, very hard worker.
[…] by former Edmonton-Calder MLA David Eggen that he will be seek the NDP nomination in the newly redrawn Glenora constituency. Supporters of the Democratic Renewal Project were present and spoke for the need for Liberals to […]
[…] have already written two posts on battleground Glenora here […]
[…] A few months ago, I wrote about the race in Edmonton-Glenora. When the interim report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission was released, former Edmonton-Calder MLA David Eggen had announced his intention to seek the NDP nomination in the Glenora constituency. After the final report was released, Mr. Eggen’s neighbourhood was back in the Calder constituency. November 23 is the scheduled date of the Calder NDP nomination meeting. […]