A new poll commissioned exclusively by the Western Standard shows Jason Kenney’s UCP would face decimation if an election was held today with the NDP’s Rachel Notley returned as premier, and a strong possibility of the new Wildrose Independence Party breaking into the legislature..The Mainstreet Research poll was conducted January 6-7 and shows 41 per cent of Albertans would vote NDP, and only 26 per cent would cast a ballot for the UCP. The Wildrose Independence Party would take 9 per cent of the vote..The Alberta Party was supported by 3 per cent, the Liberals and Greens 2 per cent each, and another 2 per cent for other parties. Another 16 per cent were undecided.. WS-Mainstreet Poll-Alberta ResultsAlberta voter intention poll with undecideds. Western Standard New Media Corp. all rights reserved. .“This is horrific news for the governing UCP and for Premier Jason Kenney,” said Mainstreet President and CEO Quito Maggi. “It’s absolutely terrible.”.At 26 per cent, the UCP are polling lower than the 28 per cent received by the Progressive Conservatives under Jim Prentice in 2015..Maggi noted it was a whopping 28 point drop in popularity for the UCP, leaving them 17 per cent behind Notley’s NDP..He said the NDP have an unprecedented 50 point lead in Edmonton and 15 per cent lead in the former Tory fortress of Calgary. The UCP has also dropped 30 points in rural Alberta..And the NDP currently leads in support among men, something Maggi said was unheard of before..“Right now we are looking at a sweep similar to the 2015 election which brought the NDP to power,” Maggi said, predicting Notley’s party would likely regain seats in Lethbridge on their way to a majority government..The drop in rural support opens the door for the Wildrose Independence Party, currently polling at nine per cent. Maggi said the WIP could start to win seats right now with its concentrated support in rural areas..He said WIP would likely see its support continue to climb if it gets a high profile leader..While Wildrose polled a distant third in Calgary and Edmonton, its strength was clearly in rural Alberta at 13 per cent support..The new party was constituted from a merger of the Freedom Conservative party and Wexit Alberta last year, opting to reclaim the Wildrose mantle, which Maggi says is still a “very, very strong brand” in the province, and has already endured its near extinction after mass floor crossings in December 2014..Based on how respondents voted in the 2019 election, the party appears to have consolidated support from the former FCP and smaller right-leaning parties and pulled significant support from both the UCP and Alberta Party..“There is a residual dislike for Notley in the province, and when you have an unpopular leader versus an unpopular leader, people will look to a third party,” Maggi said..Despite its attempts, the Alberta Party appears to have dropped back into the range of the largely moribund Liberal Party at 3 per cent and 2 per cent respectively..According to Maggi, the Alberta Party is in trouble because they don’t have a leader in place, nor a professional team behind them. Maggi added the centrist vote is largely parked between the NDP and UCP.. EXCLUSIVE: New poll shows UCP collapse as NDP & Wildrose surge .“For another centrist party to enter the space, and take away oxygen, is almost impossible,” he said..But Maggi said it’s way too early to count the UCP out with the next election not scheduled to occur until 2023..“There is a way out. A week is an eternity in politics – two years is forever,” he said, adding the NDP was hardly on the map before the 2015 election while the Tories were widely expected to sweep..Removing the undecided vote, the NDP would get 48 per cent, the UCP 31 per cent, Wildrose gets 10 per cent, Alberta Party four per cent, Liberals three per cent, Green two percent and others two per cent..The poll of 1,003 adults has a margin of error of +/- 3.09 per cent and a 95 per cent confidence level..This poll is Part One of a series of Mainstreet polls commissioned by the Western Standard. The full details and methodology of the poll can be found here..Full Western Standard-Mainstreet Research Poll.Download.Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.,dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com,.Twitter.com/nobby7694
