UCP Leader and Premier Danielle Smith celebrates her by-election win in Medicine Hat, Alta., on Nov. 8.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has secured a seat in the provincial legislature after breezing to victory in a by-election, although the UCP Leader lost ground for her party in what is considered a staunchly conservative riding and received fewer votes than her New Democrat rival in the district’s urban area in Medicine Hat.
Ms. Smith was elected on Tuesday in Brooks-Medicine Hat, a largely rural riding in southeastern Alberta, after capturing 54.5 per cent of the vote. There was little doubt she would win the race – the previous UCP MLA won with 61 per cent in the 2019 general election – but Ms. Smith’s landslide over her four opponents comes with a caveat.
“It was a blowout, but it is all about expectations,” Janet Brown, a political pollster, said. “We expected it to be an even bigger blowout.”
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Experts caution against using by-elections, especially those with low voter turnout, to predict what could happen in a subsequent general election, but political players are still mining the results for narrative nuggets. Ms. Smith crushed her opponents in some rural areas, but the NDP outpaced her in the portion of the constituency that covers Medicine Hat, a mid-sized city with strong ties to the natural gas industry.
Recent polling has suggested the UCP is trailing the NDP in Calgary and could also be at risk of losing seats in smaller urban communities in the next election. The results in Brooks-Medicine Hat provide further evidence that city voters may be uncomfortable with Ms. Smith.
About 37 per cent of eligible voters in Brooks-Medicine Hat cast ballots Tuesday, according to preliminary results from Elections Alberta. Ms. Smith won with 54.5-per-cent support, while the New Democratic Party’s Gwendoline Dirk placed second with 26.7 per cent. The Alberta Party’s Leader, Barry Morishita, placed third with 16.5 per cent. Mr. Morishita is the former mayor of Brooks, giving the party a candidate with name recognition it otherwise would not have.
Ms. Dirk, a former educator, was strongest in Medicine Hat, where she received 1,719 of the votes cast, or about 44 per cent, compared with Ms. Smith’s 1,591, or 41 per cent. Those totals do not include advanced or special ballots. Former UCP MLA Michaela Frey captured 55 per cent of the riding’s votes in Medicine Hat in the 2019 election, compared with 32 per cent for the NDP.
NDP Leader Rachel Notley cheered Ms. Dirk’s showing and said that while her party was battered in rural Alberta in 2019, she is “cautiously optimistic” it can make inroads in communities outside Calgary and Edmonton come the next provincewide vote, scheduled for May, 2023.
“We are making considerable progress in rural Alberta,” Ms. Notley told reporters Wednesday. “The trends are going in the right direction.”
While the NDP had a narrow advantage in Medicine Hat, Ms. Smith dominated in the riding’s rural areas, including places where she had 80-per-cent support, according to Elections Alberta.
“That’s rock-star territory,” Ms. Brown, the pollster, noted.
Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean, a political commentator based in Strathmore, said that while the UCP can point to the by-election as proof it is the strongest party, the losers can use the results to bolster their claims they are a competitive option come the 2023 general election.
“It is not a decisive win,” Ms. Mitchell-MacLean said. “It actually plays better for the NDP, it plays better for the Alberta Party, to say: ‘We can do this.’”
The Alberta Party, which pitches itself as a centrist alternative to Alberta’s two dominant political organizations, does not have a seat in the legislature.
Ms. Frey resigned as the MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat the day after Ms. Smith won the UCP leadership contest in early October, creating a by-election opportunity. Ms. Smith said she opted for the spot because her values and political priorities best align with rural Alberta. Meanwhile, the Premier declined to call a concurrent by-election in Calgary-Elbow, which former UCP cabinet minister Doug Schweitzer vacated at the end of August.
Ms. Smith, in her victory speech Tuesday evening, said the by-election win is just the start.
“This is our declaration that Alberta is worth fighting for,” Ms. Smith told supporters in Medicine Hat. “And make no mistake: From what you saw from the results today, we certainly have a fight ahead of us.”
She reiterated that affordability, health care and the economy are priorities for the UCP heading into next year’s general election. The NDP has identified many of the same priorities.