Quote:
Originally Posted by Weitz
Well no. They only won because the right was split.
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That's a bit of a falsehood when you consider that the PCs and WRP both had huge slices of the popular vote pie in the 2012 election too, and the PCs still won. Neither the WRP or PCs matched their popular vote totals from 2012; hell, the PCs didn't even get as many votes as the WRP had in the previous election. The AB NDP going from 127,074 votes in 2012 to 604,518 votes in 2015... that sheer volume and to which party it went (ie: not the AB Libs) cannot simply be handwaved away as consequence of a split right vote.
In any case, that's a distraction and not an obstacle to my point, which is that it was the AB NDP capitalized on the situation -- the PCs turmoil and scandal leading up to the election which is what caused the right to fracture between the PCs and WRP in the first place -- to leap-frog the perennially second-place AB Liberals (save for 2012) and become a relevant party in Alberta. Today, the AB Liberals are irrelevant.
The Jack Layton as leader of the Federal NDP getting as far as official opposition showed promise, but the leadership following his passing IMO was subpar and it shows in that all the momentum was short-lived.