Alberta's PC's defy pollsters

[train]

Standings according to the Canadian Press

Progressive Conservatives - 61
Wildrose - - 17
Liberal - 5
NDP - 4

Pollsters had Wildrose in front for most of the race. Speculation, and to be fair this is attributed to the usual media pundits who were wrong about the outcome, is that comments by 2 Wildrose candidates concerning abortion and homophobic statements hurt the party. As I've always said look to the Conservatives to preserve women's rights and the voters from Alberta agreed fleeing the Liberal party in droves to support the Conservatives. I guess more people than the federal Liberals can play the mythical hidden agenda card. :biggrin1:

 

[RandyAndy2]

I would expect that the Wild Rose party, being fairly new, had less of an organization to get out the vote than did the Conservatives. But it was probably more than any one factor or issue. I'll be interested in seeing what the popular vote was, and the voter turnout.

 

[rafterman]

Ha ha ha got cold feet at the last minute.

 

[fuji]

"defy"

But yeah, wildrose got thumped. It'll be interesting to see the analysis as it comes out as to why the pollsters and the pundits were so very wrong about Alberta voters.

 

[onthebottom]

Looks like the NDP and Liberals have some work to do.....

OTB

 

[Moviefan-2]

The Calgary Herald is trying to determine how the pollsters got it so wrong:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/polls+wrong/6507496/story.html

Danielle Smith may want to commiserate with George Smitherman, the man Ipsos Reid predicted would most likely win Toronto's mayoralty race in 2010.

Meanwhile, a number of pundits are doing a mea culpa today, including Gerry Nicholls. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...d-it-here-first-how-i-got-the-election-wrong/

And did anyone catch the front page of the National Post today? There was a column (early editions of the Post were printed before the results were in) explaining how the Wildrose Party managed to defeat the Conservatives and form government.

Oops.

 

[great bear]

Tom Flanagan and Cliff Fryers managed the Wild Rose campaign. Both of these boys were also high level helpers for Preston Manning.

 

[train]

Tom Flanagan and Cliff Fryers managed the Wild Rose campaign. Both of these boys were also high level helpers for Preston Manning.

The Reform party was socially quite a bit left of Wildrose so it's a bit odd. In any event it's nice to see them lose in this instance.

 

[fuji]

And did anyone catch the front page of the National Post today? There was a column (early editions of the Post were printed before the results were in) explaining how the Wildrose Party managed to defeat the Conservatives and form government.

Awesome. I'm going to go look for a copy of that... I bet it's gone from the stores now.

 

[fuji]

The Reform party was socially quite a bit left of Wildrose so it's a bit odd. In any event it's nice to see them lose in this instance.

Wildrose is harder to pin down in this area. Its official platform isn't really all that socially right, they concentrated on fiscal and economic / libertarian issues in their public platform. Some of that reaches into social policy, but motivated more from a libertarian ideological position than from some sort of family values moral perspective. However, when you look at the candidates it ran and where they individually stand you find a lot of them are far to the social right. I guess that unsettled a lot of people in Alberta, who appear to have liked the idea of Wildrose when asked about it by pollsters, but weren't quite able to punch their ticket on voting day.

That tells me that they could win next time out if they can convince the public that they will stick to their fiscal ideas and leave the social policy alone. Similar to the way the Federal Conservatives have had to muzzle their frothing wingnuts, and explicitly promise to keep certain issues off the table, in order to persuade a majority of Canadians to support their less controversial economic agenda.

It's surprising--but refreshing--to see that this is also the case in Alberta, which now seems to be more the province of Naheed Nenshi than of Preston Manning.

 

[Moviefan-2]

Awesome. I'm going to go look for a copy of that... I bet it's gone from the stores now.

Perhaps. It was a column by Andrew Coyne.

 

[james t kirk]

Perhaps. It was a column by Andrew Coyne.

Mansbridge frequently has him on his guest panel.

I wonder if he'll be on tonight? Har.

As to the Conservatives winning large - for once I was glad to see a PC majority in anything!!

I don't think that Redford is a Big C conservative by any means and she actually seems to make sense when she speaks.

 

[ogibowt]

Looks like the NDP and Liberals have some work to do.....

OTB

lol..for the last 40 years they have had some work to do...

 

[K Douglas]

The only poll that counts is the one on election day. Remember the Toronto mayoralty polls in 2010. And now this.

 

[Scarey]

I live in Alberta and if knew how many people told me today their turning point was when Smith supported her "anti gay" "Right is White" candidates you'd know why she lost.It was a dumb ,cocky, political move and she crashed and burned on it.Rookie mistake.

 

[Moviefan-2]

Andrew Coyne -- who wrote yesterday's front-page column in the National Post explaining the Wildrose "win" -- says he's out of the prediction business:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...er-making-election-predictions-after-alberta/

 

[Anynym]

Danielle Smith may want to commiserate with George Smitherman, the man Ipsos Reid predicted would most likely win Toronto's mayoralty race in 2010.

Darrell Bricker was denying on Monday night that he predicted a Smitherman victory, claiming that he foretold Ford winning.