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Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
There is, but the demographic trends at the riding level (and how they affect vote preference) are relatively well known and predictable. And the overall vote share is reflective of trends that are present in the sample and reflected (though with a higher error usually) in sub samples, such as from a single riding.
The trend is what should be pretty alarming for the UCP. Most of the polling suggests we will see a double digit drop in UCP support province-wide. If we assume that drop is distributed evenly, that means your average vote share will drop by around that amount for each UCP candidate at the riding level, which is very bad news for some UCP incumbents, who barely won election last time around. Nicholas Milliken, Calgary Currie’s MLA, would be in big trouble in that case—he won by 191 votes in 2019, so an across-the-board drop in UCP support will mean that he is in deep trouble and quite likely to lose re-election.
Of course, that double digit drop is in fact not distributed evenly across Alberta, so we can’t draw hasty conclusions like that. However, the fact that it is not an even distribution is actually bad news for the UCP in my view—because to me the likely explanation is that the UCP remains extremely strong in rural areas where it was going to win anyway and that disproportionately the voters who may abandon the party (as many as 40% of prior UCP voters based on some polling) are disproportionately found in Edmonton and Calgary, and maybe Lethbridge and Red Deer too.
If so, things are a bit bleak for urban UCP MLAs who won close elections in 2019, and even worse for UCP candidates running against incumbent NDP candidates.
Again, this is just interpretation of the data that we have; you’re of course correct that we don’t have data at the riding level—I’m just saying that does not mean you can’t look at the data we have and make some predictions—you just have to recognize that those predictions can be wrong. And this one could be wrong too: Milliken could win in a landslide, the UCP could sweep Calgary and the NDP vote could be inefficiently concentrated in Edmonton, and not here.
But ask yourself this: the parties likely have more data than we do both at the riding level and in terms of internal polling. Not necessarily better data, but almost certainly more data.
Given that… are Danielle Smith and the UCP behaving like a party that thinks it’s winning? To me, their behaviour smacks of a party trying to change the narrative and reverse a trend that is alarming them.
And have you noticed that the blame game is already starting? We saw a post in this very thread which suggested Smith is being treated unfairly in the media, quoting a tweet from one of her known proxies.
The UCP can obviously still win—it has a significant structural advantage in teams of vote distribution, and that will be hard for the NDP to overcome. And the election, I suspect, is going to be very close and probably more interesting than any of us would like.
But these aren’t the behaviours of a party that thinks it is winning right now.
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I completely agree. I actually think that the UCP knows full well that they're in trouble, and it's just one thing after another for them at this point. There was a Globe and Mail article today about Take Back Alberta and their inroads into the party. The issue for the UCP is that would-be voters for them stay home or vote for other parties (say an Alberta Party vote just to vote, but not actually expect the Alberta Party to win).
I do wonder about that structural advantage though. If the province is roughly 50/50 and the UCP is winning the rural seats by a crushing margin, then the cities have to be tilted in favour of the NDP, Calgary included?