Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
The media is projecting this wrong anyway though, as usual. They're looking at the percentage of votes and saying it's a close race, but that's somewhat misleading. I think that Smith and the UCP have a major problem here because the distribution of the votes is not good for them. They have a commanding lead rurally, and that makes the percentages seem closer than they really are. But when you consider the seats and how those votes are distributed it has to be the NDP with a lead here, and potentially sizeable.
You can win a seat with say one more percent than everyone else. But winning with say 70% of the vote still equals one seat. So, its kind of irrelevant. For a poll like this, it helps even out the percentages, but won't result in more seats.
The media does this every election. It's more evident on the prairies, federally, but it's the same mistake.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Torture
Isn't it the opposite? The UCP vote is much more efficient than the NDP.
The NDP have to sweep Edmonton and surrounding areas and win the majority of Calgary.
The 338 Canada article that Yoho (I know, I know) posted earlier actually talked about that:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/0...otley-00079299 |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
It's still a tough go for the NDP though. Calgary has several blue seats, and it's not an easy task to flip all of them, which the NDP pretty much requires. Best case for them is a 3rd party of "crazier than the UCP" to siphon a few percent away.
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I said it before in this thread, six months ago, and I'll say it again:
Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
Agreed, the NDP are so overwhelmingly unpopular in the rural and Edmonton/Calgary suburban ridings that it will be next to impossible for them to form government. The UCP can win >35 ridings without even trying. If the UCP win 7-10 Calgary ridings they'll form government again pretty easily. (FTR the PCs won eight seats in Calgary in 2015.)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by timun
At the very least I don't think the NDP have a hope in hell of winning Highwood, Chestermere-Strathmore, Airdrie-East, Airdrie-Cochrane, Calgary-West and any Calgary riding south of Anderson Road. They have a fighting chance in the Edmonton area.
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The UCP have an incredibly solid rural base. There are at least a couple dozen rural ridings where, in my opinion, the NDP have absolutely no chance whatsoever. Literally 0% chance of them flipping them orange. The UCP also have a very solid base, as I said earlier, in the Calgary ridings south of Anderson: Calgary-Lougheed, Calgary-Fish Creek, Calgary-Shaw, Calgary-Hays, Calgary South-East. Calgary-West is also a UCP shoe-in. I also doubt they'll lose Red Deer (North and South) or Grande Prairie. By my count there are about 40 ridings where the UCP are still, even after all this #### we've lived with over the last four years, almost assuredly going to win.
As such the margin for error for an NDP campaign is extremely small. They've got all of Edmonton (20 ridings), St. Albert, Calgary-Bhullar-McCall, Calgary-Mountain View, Calgary-Buffalo, and Lethbridge-West pretty much wrapped up, but that's only 25 safe seats. I think they're likely to take Calgary-Falconridge, Calgary-Varsity and Calgary-Currie, and have pretty good chances in Calgary-Elbow, Calgary-Klein and Banff-Kananaskis. That's still only 31 seats; they need to find another 13.
The only ridings I thing that may be up for grabs are the other 11 Calgary seats, Fort Sask-Vegreville, Leduc-Beaumont, Lethbridge-East, Morinville-St. Albert, Strathcona-Sherwood Park, and Sherwood Park. 13/17 of those need to lean NDP for them to win, but I could see any and all of those 11 Calgary seats still going Team Blue, giving the UCP a comfortable majority.