“One and done!”.Jason Kenney repeated those words ad nauseam during and in the lead-up to the 2019 Alberta election. He was of course referring to making Rachel Notley Alberta’s first and only one-term government..He was right about part one (first), but unless things change, he will be wrong about part two (only)..In a Mainstreet Research poll commissioned by theWestern Standard, UCP support has cratered from 55 per cent on election day 2019, to just 26 per cent as of January 7, 2021..That is less than half the votes they received less than two years ago. Put another way, that is fewer votes than Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives received when they were routed to third place in 2015. If these numbers were to hold up, it would be a total collapse..Among decided voters, the NDP are actually just where they were on Election Day 2019: 41 per cent..What is really bleeding the Tories white is lost support to the upstart Wildrose Independence Party (WIPA), and the large pool of undecided voters..The other parties (Alberta Party, Liberal, Green, and other) were all between 2-3 per cent each..“This is horrific news for the governing UCP and for Premier Jason Kenney,” Mainstreet Research President and CEO Quito Maggi told the Western Standard’s Dave Naylor..The NDP are ahead of the UCP by an eye-watering 50 per cent in Edmonton’s Fortress Orange. With numbers like this, the Tories stand to lose their lone seat in Edmonton-proper and all of the suburban ridings surrounding it..In Fortress Blue – Calgary – the Tories face huge losses as they trail the NDP by 15 points..The NDP are – for the first time ever – even leading amongst men..But it’s not because the NDP has picked up all that much support amongst Edmontonians, Calgarians, or men. It is because the UCP has been slowly – and now rapidly – bleeding support to their sovereigntist/populist-right flank..Readers familiar with me will know that I am not an entirely objective observer of that sovereigntist/populist-right flank, but I will do my best to give a fair analysis..‘The Flank’ has been a growing threat since June 2020, when the Freedom Conservative Party merged with Wexit Alberta to form Wildrose 2.0 (WIPA). Since then, the party’s interim leader, Paul Hinman has been trying to repeat what he did as the original leader of Wildrose 1.0: slowly but surely do the gruelling work of building a party from the ground up..Despite this, the party has had very little in the way of mainstream media attention. It’s no wonder that much of the media are wondering ‘who the hell are these people?’.The party ignored by the MSM polled a distant third in Calgary and Edmonton, but a respectable 13 per cent outside of those two big cities. Based on past performance of Social Credit, Reform, and Wildrose 1.0, it’s reasonable to assume Wildrose 2.0 support is strongly concentrated outside of the cities in the rural south and central parts of Alberta..According to Maggi, these numbers are likely to lead to at least a few WIPA MLAs getting elected if they hold, but we have to wait for the advanced modelling to more accurately predict how that shakes out..Undoubtedly, much of the collapse in UCP support is driven by the still fresh Great Snowbird Scandal, but it would be a mistake to lay the blame entirely at its feet. As polling later this week will show, the Tories are bitterly divided down the middle on questions of independence and lockdowns..And as Maggi points out, the Wildrose brand is remarkably resilient in Alberta. It was assumed dead by the entirety of the media and political class after the mass floor crossings of December 2014, but bounced back from the dead months later to win a record number of seats and be in contention to win the May 2015 election..While a majority of 2015 Wildrose voters are still a part of Kenney’s UCP coalition, actions of the government have led to a slow, but steady exodus. The recent scandal has likely accelerated this. Perhaps time will heal all, and these voters will drift back to the mothership. Perhaps not..Kenney and the Tories are faced with the same political choice Prentice was: turn right and nip the Wildrose in the bud, or left and push the NDP back across the centre. Prentice decided to oscillate between both, with disastrous consequences..It’s a war brewing on two fronts, for which Kenney needs his own Schleiffen Plan..Kenney has two years and change left in his term. He needs to decide which front he will attack..Derek Fildebrandt is the Publisher of the Western Standard
“One and done!”.Jason Kenney repeated those words ad nauseam during and in the lead-up to the 2019 Alberta election. He was of course referring to making Rachel Notley Alberta’s first and only one-term government..He was right about part one (first), but unless things change, he will be wrong about part two (only)..In a Mainstreet Research poll commissioned by theWestern Standard, UCP support has cratered from 55 per cent on election day 2019, to just 26 per cent as of January 7, 2021..That is less than half the votes they received less than two years ago. Put another way, that is fewer votes than Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives received when they were routed to third place in 2015. If these numbers were to hold up, it would be a total collapse..Among decided voters, the NDP are actually just where they were on Election Day 2019: 41 per cent..What is really bleeding the Tories white is lost support to the upstart Wildrose Independence Party (WIPA), and the large pool of undecided voters..The other parties (Alberta Party, Liberal, Green, and other) were all between 2-3 per cent each..“This is horrific news for the governing UCP and for Premier Jason Kenney,” Mainstreet Research President and CEO Quito Maggi told the Western Standard’s Dave Naylor..The NDP are ahead of the UCP by an eye-watering 50 per cent in Edmonton’s Fortress Orange. With numbers like this, the Tories stand to lose their lone seat in Edmonton-proper and all of the suburban ridings surrounding it..In Fortress Blue – Calgary – the Tories face huge losses as they trail the NDP by 15 points..The NDP are – for the first time ever – even leading amongst men..But it’s not because the NDP has picked up all that much support amongst Edmontonians, Calgarians, or men. It is because the UCP has been slowly – and now rapidly – bleeding support to their sovereigntist/populist-right flank..Readers familiar with me will know that I am not an entirely objective observer of that sovereigntist/populist-right flank, but I will do my best to give a fair analysis..‘The Flank’ has been a growing threat since June 2020, when the Freedom Conservative Party merged with Wexit Alberta to form Wildrose 2.0 (WIPA). Since then, the party’s interim leader, Paul Hinman has been trying to repeat what he did as the original leader of Wildrose 1.0: slowly but surely do the gruelling work of building a party from the ground up..Despite this, the party has had very little in the way of mainstream media attention. It’s no wonder that much of the media are wondering ‘who the hell are these people?’.The party ignored by the MSM polled a distant third in Calgary and Edmonton, but a respectable 13 per cent outside of those two big cities. Based on past performance of Social Credit, Reform, and Wildrose 1.0, it’s reasonable to assume Wildrose 2.0 support is strongly concentrated outside of the cities in the rural south and central parts of Alberta..According to Maggi, these numbers are likely to lead to at least a few WIPA MLAs getting elected if they hold, but we have to wait for the advanced modelling to more accurately predict how that shakes out..Undoubtedly, much of the collapse in UCP support is driven by the still fresh Great Snowbird Scandal, but it would be a mistake to lay the blame entirely at its feet. As polling later this week will show, the Tories are bitterly divided down the middle on questions of independence and lockdowns..And as Maggi points out, the Wildrose brand is remarkably resilient in Alberta. It was assumed dead by the entirety of the media and political class after the mass floor crossings of December 2014, but bounced back from the dead months later to win a record number of seats and be in contention to win the May 2015 election..While a majority of 2015 Wildrose voters are still a part of Kenney’s UCP coalition, actions of the government have led to a slow, but steady exodus. The recent scandal has likely accelerated this. Perhaps time will heal all, and these voters will drift back to the mothership. Perhaps not..Kenney and the Tories are faced with the same political choice Prentice was: turn right and nip the Wildrose in the bud, or left and push the NDP back across the centre. Prentice decided to oscillate between both, with disastrous consequences..It’s a war brewing on two fronts, for which Kenney needs his own Schleiffen Plan..Kenney has two years and change left in his term. He needs to decide which front he will attack..Derek Fildebrandt is the Publisher of the Western Standard
