Pierre Poilievre’s landslide victory in the CPC leadership is a colossal turning point in Canadian politics, with real implications for the UCP leadership contest — a first ballot win by Danielle Smith..The 60,000 new UCP members who purchased memberships solely for the leadership vote are likely to have strong similarities with those who voted for Poilievre. They're the newly politically active and have yet to be disillusioned. They are also likely to share the attitudes and perspectives of those who elected Poilievre..Importantly, they may also have the same determination as Poilievre’s supporters..All of this likely bodes well for Danielle Smith. Like Poilievre, she has been able to keep her campaign messages simple and memorable. She is not the old school establishment candidate. In fact, when other leadership candidates ganged up on her, it further emphasized she is new and represents real change. Point to Smith..So, what about policy? The debate spent some time on health-care, which most Albertans regularly rank as one of their most pressing concerns, and the future of which is a minefield no matter who wins the premiership..But it probably will not affect the outcome of the leadership race itself. All the UCP candidates essentially gave the same message, saying the bureaucracy needs to be fixed. Amen..A few steps towards private delivery at public cost would be helpful going forward unless Albertans take control of their own health-care decisions — including their choice of service providers — they will be forever beholden to the bureaucracy that controls health care delivery. However, except for policy nerds, most people do not want to expend their brainpower contemplating policy options and alternatives. That's why the net effect of the health-care debate on candidate ranking is probably negligible..The debate around the Sovereignty Act [SA] also dwindled to nothing. It seems the “Mean Girls” Club thinks they've had the final say on this issue. But 25% of Albertans say they're unsure whether they support the act or not. Presumably, they need more information in order to form an opinion. However, it appears the main detractors will not be giving it to them..Meanwhile advice is starting to come in on how the federal Liberals should handle the SA. So, for a few commentators, it appears to be a done deal. Should Smith win, this will be a problem for Kenney, Toews, Jean, Schulz, Sawhney, and Aheer. Will they will resign? Some of them surely will be gone by the next election, but it's unlikely any of them will find their way into a Smith Cabinet..Meanwhile, arguments the SA will create business uncertainty and lead to reduced investment was blown out of the water when the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses Canada supported it. Other business groups have not provided comment. Presumably, they're not concerned..Whether any or all of this translates into votes remains to be seen, however. The most exceptional thing about Poilievre’s win is he obtained nearly 71% of the votes which translated into more than 68% of the points needed under the CPC election rules. This outstripped his polling numbers by 27-37 points as he was polling in the 34-44% range in the last six weeks before the vote. This is a polling error of 61-108% which means we really need to take any polling numbers with a grain of salt..Polling results in Alberta have been scarce, however, only three official polls tracking the UCP leadership race were released to the public. They are summarized on a Wiki site..It's important to note the Calgary Herald and Western Standard polls queried UCP “supporters” only, not UCP members who will actually make the decision. (This is probably because they don’t have access to the UCP membership lists.) So these polls include people who are not actually voting in the leadership contest. While this is interesting information it doesn’t help with the question of who is going to win..The third official poll was commissioned by the Western Standard from Mainstreet Research. It professes to be polling UCP members, but from a time period starting Aug. 4, 2022. The results were updated September 5 and September 13. Two other polls of actual members were released by Danielle Smith through the Calgary Sun on August 5 and September 16 ..What can we learn from the Bell and Mainstreet numbers? First, support for Danielle Smith has fallen by around four percentage points, but is still above 40%. This is hardly surprising given the constant criticism by her opponents, including an accusation of racism..Support for Travis Toews increased by about two percentage points, since many view Toews as the only alternative. At just above 10%, Brian Jean’s support has not changed, but Rebecca Schultz’s has fallen..Surprisingly, Todd Loewen’s support rose about three percentage points at the expense of Schultz, Leela Aheer and Rajan Sawhney..The most surprising statistic from the Sun’s September 16 article was at the time of the September 12 poll, 46.4% of the members already voted. Only one week into the voting and more than 50,000 ballots may have been sent. Clearly some people in the UCP are highly motivated..Smith commented that, “this race is close.” .Perhaps, but if the polling errors in Alberta are similar to the CPC national race, then Smith will win on the first ballot..NB: Two weeks from now, the mail-in balloting will be finished and we will have a new premier. However, don’t wait more than a week to mail your ballot since you might miss the deadline. You can still vote in person on October 6, but only the authentic procrastinators will forgo dropping an envelope in the mail just to waste several hours going to a polling station..William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
