If Naheed Nenshi wins the leadership of the Alberta NDP, he would lose against the UCP if an election was held today, according to a poll conducted by Pallas Data. “Naheed Nenshi might be doing better than the other leadership candidates because of name recognition, but I think there is more at work here,” said Pallas Data founder and CEO Joseph Angolano in a Monday press release. “Nenshi can retain more of those who say would vote for the NDP if an election were held today.”Pallas Data said the Alberta UCP would come in first place (51%). It added the NDP would finish in second place (42%). Another 5% would be undecided, and 2% would vote for another party. On a general ballot at the moment, Pallas Data found the UCP has a seven point lead over the NDP. Among decided and leaning voters, it said the UCP led by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has 52%. The NDP led by leader Rachel Notley is at 44.9%. “It has almost been a year since the last provincial election, and both the UCP and the NDP find themselves in roughly the same spot today as they did a year ago,” said Angolano. “If an election were held today, the UCP would win a comfortable majority.”Despite the UCP losing by 13% to the NDP in Edmonton, it is ahead 3% in Calgary and has a 31% lead in the areas outside of the two major cities. While Nenshi would be the best-performing NDP leadership candidate, candidate Kathleen Ganley would come in second place (35%). This was followed by candidates Sarah Hoffman and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse (34%), candidate Rakhi Pancholi (33%), and candidate Gil McGowan (31%). Since Nenshi leads among the other candidates, Angolano said this shows he is not an outsider to the NDP. On the contrary, he said he “is best able to keep the base from going elsewhere — more so than the other leadership candidates who are current NDP MLAs.”The Alberta NDP leadership election will be held on June 22. If there any negative feelings toward Nenshi over his time as Calgary mayor among people, Angolano said this poll did not find them. He acknowledged the results of this poll “suggest that two initial criticisms of the Nenshi leadership bid — that he is an outsider to the NDP that might alienate both current NDP voters and Calgarians — do not hold water.”“We have to be clear here and say this poll measures public perception of the NDP leadership candidates and tests them as hypothetical leaders of their party,” he said. “Winning a leadership race, on the other hand, requires strong on-the-ground organization, the ability to sell memberships, and a strong get-out-the-vote machinery.”Nenshi decided on March 11 he was out with the purple and in with the orange. READ MORE: UPDATED: Nenshi to run for Alberta NDP leaderHe confirmed he will enter the Alberta NDP leadership race. “We need a government that we can trust,” he said. .The poll was conducted using automated telephone interviews from March 12 to 13 among a sample of 868 Albertan adults. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
