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Polls suggest NDP set to make historic sweep in Alberta

Polls suggest NDP set to make historic sweep in Alberta

Ask anyone in Alberta, or any keen politics watcher, whether they’d ever think the Progressive Conservatives would seriously be at risk of losing an election to the New Democrats, and it’s quite possible the response would have been one of hearty laughter.

But the over 40 year reign of the PCs in Alberta could come to an end on May 5, if recent polls are any indication. The NDP, under new leader Rachel Notley, are putting in a real challenge to Premier Jim Prentice.

The latest poll from EKOS Research, which randomly sampled 721 Albertans between April 25 and 29 and released on April 30, suggests the NDP could sweep the province.

In a dramatic change from the results of the last Alberta provincial election in 2012, when the Wildrose Party offered the biggest challenge to the PCs, about 42 per cent of Albertans intend to vote for the NDP, according to the EKOS poll.

Twenty-three per cent of voters intend to cast a ballot for the PCs and 21 per cent for the Wildrose.

In 2012, the PCs won a majority government and the NDP only received about 10 per cent of the province’s votes.

A report on the EKOS findings points to a few factors that may explain the shift to NDP support in Alberta.

According to EKOS, the NDP has been able to rally all of the left — voters who’d normally flock to the Liberals and Greens — behind the party and its leader Notley and the right, too, is split between the PCs and Wildrose.

The polling firm also suggests the Alberta NDP is being propelled by “huge and unprecedented lead” with university educated voters and holds a serious advantage with current and former union members in the province.

Another poll, conducted by Mainstreet Technologies and released May 1, calls a new government in Alberta “inevitable.” The latest poll from the company puts the NDP in the lead, with the PCs in third place.

“To understand where we are at this stage in the election and context for these numbers, we have to look back at where we started. The unpopularity of the budget cannot be overstated,” said Mainstreet Technologies president Quito Maggi in a press release.

“The plan to campaign on a budget that an overwhelming majority of the population disliked at a time that an overwhelming majority of the population did not want, has been a disaster for Jim Prentice.”

According to Mainstreet Technologies, 73 per cent of respondents in Edmonton will vote NDP. Thirty-five per cent in Calgary will back the NDP followed by the Wildrose Party at 26 per cent, with the PCs in Calgary trailing at 24 per cent.

The poll also says that outside Calgary and Edmonton, the NDP lead with 30 per cent of the vote over the Wildrose and PCs, who come in at 33 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.

“The dynasty in Alberta will come to an end on Tuesday with the election of an NDP government, what seemed like the unlikeliest outcome, is now the only possible outcome,” Maggi noted.

The Mainstreet Technologies poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.85 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error for the total sample in the EKOS poll is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.