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Alberta Politics

mapping alberta’s progressive conservative leadership first-ballot vote results.

Members of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party will be voting for their next leader in a second (or third) ballot on October 1. Gary Mar, Alison Redford, and Doug Horner will contest the vote in two weeks, and until then will be selling memberships across the province.

Last Saturday’s first-ballot vote gave Mr. Mar a wide-lead with 40% of the of vote. Ms. Redford at 18% and Mr. Horner at 14% have a big challenge to catch up with the front-runner. Not moving on to the next ballot are former Finance Minister Ted Morton, former cabinet minister Rick Orman, and backbench MLA Doug Griffiths.

While the right-wing Mr. Orman placed a respectful fifth place, Dr. Morton’s support from his previous run in the 2006 leadership campaign appears to have evaporated last weekend, leaving many political watchers to suspect that his base has migrated to the Wildrose on a more permenant basis. It appears that Mr. Griffiths’ outsider message was not enough to resonate with PC Party members across the province.

Here is a breakdown of the September 17 first-ballot results:

Maps: Number of total votes cast in the first-ballot, MLA endorsements of leadership candidates, poll-by-poll results in the first-ballot vote. (Click to enlarge)
Maps: Number of total votes cast in the first-ballot, MLA endorsements of leadership candidates, poll-by-poll results in the first-ballot vote. (Click to enlarge)
Gary Mar Alison Redford Doug Horner PC leadership Vote Alberta
Maps: Percentage of PC voter support for Gary Mar, Alison Redford, and Doug Horner. (Click to enlarge)

 

Ted Morton-Rick Orman-Doug Griffiths Alberta PC leadership vote
Maps: Percentage of PC voter support for Ted Morton, Rick Orman, and Doug Griffiths. (Click to enlarge)

 

8 replies on “mapping alberta’s progressive conservative leadership first-ballot vote results.”

The biggest loser here is Damielle Smith and the Wildrose. Her extremist policies have been rejected by all voters in all parties but her own.

I’d like to see a map that tracks the raw vote turnout (as opposed to percentage turnout).

That would be valuable to opposition parties to use to see where the Tories are weakest. The ridings with small membership turnouts would likely be the top targets of the Wildrose in rural Alberta and the NDP in Edmonton.

Here are some raw ‘notions’ I am holding to myself, looking for more evidence to support my conclusions.

1. Not sure that from these results it proves conclusively for or against how deep the support for Mar happens to be. It seems a lot of his support was from supporting MLA’s getting the vote out. It shows that his machine was better than the rest. But it’s not conclusive that he is particularly well liked, or much enthusiasm for him (given the low turnout). So the theory might be that his support is a mile wide, but not especially deep. The best of the group maybe, but not someone that makes people shout from the rooftops – yet.

2. Clearly, Edmonton likes Gary Mar, but how much? We shall see. But with Edmonton supporting Mar, and uniform but unknown depth across the province, he will be a tough to beat in an election. Especially given the uneven support for opposition candidates. Smyth, for example, will not do well in Edmonton. Just look at how poorly the more right wing candidates are doing there. She might not need Edmonton, but that city will be an outlier in her government if ever elected. And given Morton’s unsuccessful overtures to that city, it is unlikely they can be won over. Edmonton will be split between Mar and the other opposition parties. I guess they are still Redmonton.

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