Top 10 closest Alberta races in Canada's 2025 election
It’s been just over three months since Election Day in Canada and, as the dust has settled, I’ve taken a closer look at the results in ridings across Alberta.
The Conservative Party continued its decades-long streak of electoral dominance in federal elections in Alberta as it saw its support jump to 63.5 percent from 55.4 percent in 2021 (though it is still lower than the 69 percent the Conservatives earned in Alberta in 2019). The Conservatives had strong showings in every part of the province, but especially in rural Alberta where the party’s candidates were elected with huge margins of victory.
Alberta’s two largest cities, Calgary and Edmonton, were home to the most interesting and most competitive races of the federal election in our province. The races with the narrowest margins of victory were in the cities, and the three closest races were in Calgary, which not long ago was considered a Conservative stronghold.
Opposition shouldn’t panic – it should make smart changes
The three provincial by-elections are in full swing and the NDP are eager to have leader Naheed Nenshi join their MLAs in the Legislature. Two new polls will add extra urgency to the NDP’s efforts to hold on to two of those seats and have Nenshi hit the ground running when he is elected in Edmonton-Strathcona on June 23.
One of Daveberta’s first rules of Alberta politics is to never underestimate the Conservatives, and that rule appears to have held true last night as votes in the federal election were counted across the province.
At the time I am publishing this, Conservative Party candidates are elected in 34 of 37 ridings in Alberta. This makes them a significant block in what will be a 144 MP Conservative Opposition in Ottawa. This is a larger Conservative caucus than existed before this election but falls far short of the huge majority government the Conservatives were expecting Pierre Poilievre would lead them to only a few months ago. The Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Mark Carney were re-elected with 168 seats, including two in Alberta.
It’s Election Day in Canada and the polls are open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Alberta. If you aren’t one of the 815,131 Albertans who voted in the Advance Polls, then be sure to find your voting station and cast a ballot today.
While voters in most of Alberta’s 37 federal electoral districts are expected to elect their local Conservative Party candidate tonight, there are a few ridings that are expected to be competitive. Here are a few Alberta ridings I will be watching closely tonight…
A campaign mailer from NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais in Edmonton Griesbach (source: Dave Cournoyer)
The Liberal surge in the national polls, which shows the Liberals jumping up to around 30 percent support in Alberta in some polls (the party’s highest levels of support in this province in almost sixty years), has led to a lot of discussion in this campaign about vote-splitting.
“Stop the Split!” was the key message of a recent pamphlet that Blake Desjarlais’ campaign mailed to voters in the riding. The NDP campaign’s message is “Only Blake Desjarlais can defeat Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in Edmonton Griesbach.” The pamphlet doesn’t mention Kerry Diotte, which is interesting, and points out that in the last election the NDP earned 40 percent of the vote, the Conservatives won 37 percent and the Liberals finished third with 13 percent in the riding.
Discussions about vote-splitting in Edmonton, which usually revolve around defeating Conservative candidates, almost always devolve into cringeworthy arguments between Liberal and NDP partisans – which is why I try to avoid them.
Daveberta readers are smart people and it’s not my place to tell you how to vote. The furthest I’ll wade into the vote-splitting debate in my riding today is to say that it’s true that the Liberals are doing very well in the national polls and it’s also true that Desjarlais’ campaign is the better organized of the two main non-Conservative candidates in Edmonton Griesbach.
Edmonton Griesbach NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais snaps a selfie with former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, and NDP MLAs Janis Irwin and Brooks Arcand-Paul (source: Blake Desjarlais / Instagram)
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais faces former Conservative MP Kerry Diotte and Mark Carney’s red wave
As Canada’s federal election enters its final week, I am taking a closer look at the race in the Edmonton Griesbach riding. It’s one of a surprisingly large handful of Alberta ridings that are considered competitive in this election and it also happens to be the riding I live and vote in.
The east central/north side Edmonton riding was where the NDP picked up their second seat in Alberta in the 2021 federal election when New Democrat Blake Desjarlais defeated two-term Conservative MP Kerry Diotte. This year’s election is a rematch between the two candidates but, despite traditionally being a blue-orange race, the Liberal Party’s surge could put that party’s candidate in the mix.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper at an election rally in Edmonton on April 7, 2025 (source: Pierre Poilievre / Facebook)
It was Alberta Week in Canada’s federal election campaign
It was Alberta Week in the federal election campaign with the two party leaders who grew up in the western province returning to wave their party flags and rally supporters.
Danielle Smith joins Team Canada reluctant to use oil & gas trump card
One full day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and provincial premiers Doug Ford in Ontario and Wab Kinew in Manitoba announced retaliatory measures in response to American President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on Canadian products, Alberta Premier Danielle Smithentered the fray.
“This economic attack on our country, combined with Mr. Trump’s continued talk of using economic force to facilitate the annexation of our country, has broken trust between our two countries in a profound way,” Smith said at a press conference where she was flanked by Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors Devin Dreeshen, Minister of Justice Mickey Amery, Deputy Premier Mike Ellis, and two law enforcement officers (one wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying an assault rifle).
“It is a betrayal of a deep and abiding friendship,” she said.
Quick note: Thank you for reading today’s Daveberta Newsletter! Paid subscribers can keep scrolling to read about the upcoming Edmonton-Strathcona provincial by-election and the federal Conservative Party candidate nomination votes being held in Bow River on March 6 & 7, Red Deer on March 8, and Edmonton Griesbach on March 9.
Premier Danielle Smith and Innisfail-Sylvan Lake UCP MLA Devin Dreeshen at a UCP member only town hall meeting (source: United Conservative Party / Facebook)
It’s hard to imagine the old PC Party getting bogged down by this debate
If I had walked into the Alberta Legislature ten years ago and told an MLA, staffer, or journalist that in 2024 the province’s political landscape would be a competitive two-party system, I probably would have been laughed out of the Rotunda. They might have even alerted a security guard if I’d been so out of my mind to predict that the New Democratic Party would be competing with the conservatives to form Alberta’s government.
Until that point ten years ago, only twice in the Progressive Conservative Party’s four decades of uninterrupted majority governments had the dynasty been seriously challenged in an election. The PC Party was unquestionably Alberta’s Natural Governing Party.
NDP members should remember there is no easy fix. Just ask the Alberta Liberals.
“This action reflects the isolationist politics of Alberta, but more importantly it is the result of the deep, deep malaise at the top end of the federal party. There is the little Toronto power group which throws the ball back and fourth to each other – they feed off each other.”
That was a quote from an Alberta Liberal activist attending the party’s convention in Calgary where members of the seatless party voted two-to-one to break ties and declare provincial independence from the Liberal Party of Canada led by Prime Minister Trudeau.
That was in February 1977.
Fast forward to today and, although the circumstances are different, you might hear something similar come from the mouth of an Alberta NDP member when talking about the provincial party’s relationship with the federal NDP in Ottawa.
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley during the 2023 election (source: Alberta NDP / Facebook)
Alberta’s Progressive Future calls for Alberta NDP to distance itself from the Ottawa NDP
When I worked for the Alberta Liberal Party back in the 2000s, we had an inside joke that the Liberals could run Jesus Christ as a candidate in Wainwright and still lose. It was funny because it was probably true (the last time voters in Wainwright elected a Liberal MLA was in 1909) and was a reflection of how cynical we were that the party had any chance of actually winning any seats in rural Alberta.
I imagine more than a few Alberta NDP supporters felt the same when the results of the 2023 election started rolling in on May 29, 2023. Despite making big gains in Calgary and winning 38 seats province-wide, the party’s hopes of forming government were dashed at the city limits.
Danielle Smith and Rob Anderson in the Media Room at the Alberta Legislature in 2010 (Source: Dave Cournoyer).
As a columnist, Smith was a harsh critic of “unreliable” renewable energy
The United Conservative Party government’s decision to impose an immediate 7-month moratorium on all new major wind and solar energy projects in Alberta came as a surprise to many political watchers.
The drastic decision was sudden and it wasn’t featured in any of the UCP’s campaign promises in the election held only 75 days ago. But anyone who has paid close attention to now-Premier Danielle Smith’s newspaper and radio commentary knows she has not hidden her deeply critical and skeptical views of wind and solar power.
Brad Lafortune joins Dave Cournoyer on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the federal election results in Alberta, including NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais‘ spectacular win over Kerry Diotte in Edmonton-Griesbach, and the ongoing troubles in the United Conservative Party and how many more days Jason Kenney might have as leader.
We also discuss the future of childcare and early childhood education in Alberta now that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have formed government after signing $10/day childcare agreements with more than half of Canada’s provinces.
The Daveberta Podcast is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network: Locally grown. Community supported.
You can listen and subscribe to the Daveberta Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts online. We love feedback from our listeners, so let us know what you think of this episode and leave a review where you download.
There’s a chance that the federal election results in Alberta could end up being less than exciting, with the Conservatives winning most of the province’s seats, but there’s no doubt Alberta had an impact in this federal election: Premier Jason Kenney might have cost Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives their chance at forming government in Ottawa.
The former wonder kid of Canada’s conservative movement, Kenney spent a month in hiding to avoid embarrassing O’Toole only to emerge in the final few days of the campaign to drop a bomb in his federal cousin’s lap. Kenney’s Open for Summer plan that removed all public health restrictions in time for the Calgary Stampede in July led to a vicious fourth wave of COVID-19 that has seen a steep spike in new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Erin O’Toole and Jason Kenney during happier times.
Intensive Care Units across Alberta are filling up and Kenney has had to plead with other provinces to take our sick patients if we run out of space.
All non-emergency surgeries in Alberta are cancelled and 75 per cent of the operating rooms at the Alberta Children’s Hospital are closing because doctors and nurses are being redeployed to take care of COVID patients.
Public sector health care unions are urging Kenney to ask the federal government for help from the military and the Red Cross.
O’Toole praised Kenney’s response to the pandemic and has refused to answer questions about it from reporters since Alberta once again declared a State of Public Health Emergency last week.
While the Conservatives are expected to sweep Alberta once again, O’Toole only visited the province once in this election campaign. He spent a morning in Edmonton during the first week of the campaign, making a policy announcement in Edmonton-Centre and stopping for a photo-op at a Jollibee’s before shuffling back to the airport for an afternoon flight to British Columbia.
But unlike recent federal elections, this time the right-wing of the political spectrum is pretty crowded in Alberta.
People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier has taken advantage of O’Toole and Kenney’s perceived political weaknesses by spending a considerable amount of time in Alberta during this election.
Appealing to groups ranging from the vaccine hesitant to indoctrinated COVID conspiracy theorists, Bernier has been attracting large crowds at his Alberta rallies. And his candidates have earned endorsements from former Conservative MP David Yurdiga and former Reform MP Cliff Breitkreuz.
Former Ontario MP Derek Sloan, who was kicked out of the Conservative Party for accepting a donation from a well-known white supremacist, has been embraced the COVID conspiracy theories as he campaigns as an Independent candidate in Banff-Airdrie with the full-support of former Conservative MP Rob Anders.
And then there’s the separatist Maverick Party led by former Conservative MP and oil industry lobbyist Jay Hill, which is still in the mix despite Alberta separatism not being the hot topic it was after the 2019 federal election.
Meanwhile, the silence coming from the United Conservative Party Caucus is deafening.
Aside from dissenting Tweets and Facebook comments from two already disgruntled backbenchers – former cabinet minister and Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Leela Aheer and Calgary-Fish Creek MLA Richard Gotfried – the predicted caucus revolt has not yet spilled out into the public. But maybe that changes if Justin Trudeau’s Liberals form government on Monday.
Directors of the UCP association in Olds-Didsbury-Three-Hills, home of Speaker and former interim leader Nathan Cooper, near unanimously passed a motion calling for a leadership review and party vice-president Joel Mullen is reported to have called for a review.
Kenney’s supporters on the UCP provincial executive headed off previous calls by scheduling leadership review at the party’s Fall 2022 convention, only months ahead of the expected 2023 provincial election.
If O’Toole does not become Prime Minister after the federal ballots are counted, he might not be the only Conservative leader looking for a new job. Kenney’s already embattled leadership could become even more tenuous.
Kerry Diotte unites the NDP in Alberta
Jagmeet Singh and Blake Desjarlais in Edmonton-Griesbach on Sept. 18, 2021.
In what is likely his biggest single achievement of his political career, Conservative candidate Kerry Diotte has succeeded in bridging the political divide between the provincial and federal NDP in Alberta.
Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was back in Alberta yesterday for his second visit to the Edmonton-Griesbach, where the party believes candidate Blake Desjarlais can unseat Diotte to pick up a second seat for the NDP.
With NDP incumbent Heather McPherson believed to be secure for re-election in Edmonton-Strathcona, the party has been pouring its resources into Griesbach.
Rachel Notley and Janis Irwin with Blake Desjarlais and volunteers in Edmonton-Griesbach.
And Singh isn’t the only party leader on the campaign trail for Desjarlais.
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley was on the doors last week helping Desjarlais get his vote out. While Notley tried her best to avoid being involved in the 2019 federal campaign, she and about a dozen NDP MLAs, including local MLAs Janis Irwin and David Eggen have been spotted door knocking with Desjarlais.
Pipelines and the carbon tax kept the NDP cousins apart in 2019, but the possibility of defeating Kerry Diotte has brought the provincial and federal NDP together in 2021.
Liberals have their sights set on Edmonton-Centre, Mill Woods and Calgary-Skyview
The Liberals hope to reestablish a beachhead in Alberta and if they are successful it will likely be in Edmonton-Centre, Edmonton-Mill Woods or Calgary-Skyview.
Ben Henderson and Don Iveson in Edmonton-MIll Woods.
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau only made one brief stop in Alberta during the first week of the election campaign to speak at a rally for Calgary-Skyview candidate George Chahal.
University—Rosedale Liberal candidate and former Edmonton native Chrystia Freeland visited Alberta twice to campaign with candidates in Calgary and Edmonton, including Randy Boissonnault in Edmonton-Centre and Ben Henderson in Edmonton-Mill Woods.
Also visiting Alberta during the campaign were Vancouver-South Liberal candidate Harjit Sajan, who campaigned in Calgary-Centre with Sabrina Grover, and Surrey-Newton Liberal candidate Sukh Dhaliwal, who campaigned with Henderson in Mill Woods.
Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson endorsed Henderson and campaigned with him in the final days of the election. The two men have served together on Edmonton City Council since 2007.
Voting stations are open from 7:30am to 7:30pm on Sept. 20, 2021.
We are back from the summer with the first episode of Season 4 of the Daveberta Podcast and we dive right into Alberta’s response to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, speculation about how long Jason Kenney might last in the Premier’s Office, the federal election, municipal political parties and slates and much much more.
The Daveberta Podcast is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network: Locally grown. Community supported.
You can listen and subscribe to the Daveberta Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts online. We love feedback from our listeners, so let us know what you think of this episode and leave a review where you download.
