Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

While Quito Maggi is predicting the NDP to win in a nail-biter, EKOS is predicting the UCP will wind up ahead and win a majority on the strength of a 6% lead in the Calgary CMA:

https://www.ekospolitics.com/index.p...ce-in-alberta/

Both agree it will be very close. And at least EKOS is showing its work, so there’s that. I haven’t seen what Maggi’s looking at other than the Mainstreet tracker (which still shows the UCP ahead, albeit narrowly.

New Abacus poll will be out after the weekend apparently.

This is interesting, but not surprising:

The EKOS “disinformation index” also shows a stark divide in the electorate. The index clearly shows a correlation between disinformation and party support, with the most informed voters (i.e., those who score 0 on the disinformation index) being more likely to back the NDP, while the least informed voters are much more likely to support the UCP. Among the most informed voters, the NDP leads 84.0% to 14.9%, while among the least informed (those who scored a five or higher on the index), the UCP leads 87.6% to 10.4%. Among the indicators that are used to construct the index, belief that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change is the biggest driver in this disinformation polarization. Nearly nine-in-ten (87.8%) NDP supporters believe greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, while just one-third (35.2%) of UCP voters do.

[Benched]

Wife and I early voted yesterday, +2 NDP. Our riding will be close but I think is going to flip to NDP.

(No line, in and out in 1 minute)

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1662439524067319808

[kermitology]

I live in BC now, so I can’t vote, but I did vote for Kathleen Ganley in the last election, and she’s wonderful. For me it comes down to who loves Alberta. When I think about that, you can definitely trust that Rachel Notley and the NDP truly love Alberta, and care for Albertans. When it comes to the UCP, it’s much murkier. We’ve seen money wasted on propping up businesses, literal attacks on Alberta residents (Nixon, Shandro), corrupt actions (Shandro, Madu, Smith), intolerance towards LGBTQ2+ (too many to count), and a lot of general disdain for Albertans.

This election is a choice between two parties, and it’s clear who is UNFIT to govern: the UCP.

2015 NDP was not going into that election expecting to govern, they figured it out in the second half, they moved to the centre, and frankly, Alberta needs to understand that they need to work with the federal government, not constantly against it. You can’t beg for money and then turn your nose up when the feds want things done consistently with other provinces.

Voting for the NDP won’t hurt Alberta, but voting for the UCP definitely will. It’s just a matter of when and how badly.

[RogerWilco]

With most of the polls leaning the other way Quito Maggi is doubling down this morning:


"And I should say that not only do I believe that the @albertaNDP
will win the most seats, but they may in fact win the popular vote at this point
I won’t be eating any hats on that one folks, too many X factors on rural turnout to be sure"

[Yoho]

I think your in trouble if your clinging to the one outlier poll.

I can’t see a ton of X factors rurally.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

With most of the polls leaning the other way Quito Maggi is doubling down this morning:


"And I should say that not only do I believe that the @albertaNDP
will win the most seats, but they may in fact win the popular vote at this point
I won’t be eating any hats on that one folks, too many X factors on rural turnout to be sure"

Hero or zero Tuesday morning

[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I think your in trouble if your clinging to the one outlier poll.

I can’t see a ton of X factors rurally.

Not clinging to anything, just find it interesting.

[Madman]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I think your in trouble if your clinging to the one outlier poll.

I can’t see a ton of X factors rurally.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I think your in trouble if your clinging to the one outlier poll.

I can’t see a ton of X factors rurally.

I think you misunderstood. He’s saying he is not prepared to “eat any hats” if the UCP wins the popular vote, because their margins in rural ridings will be highc and there are turnout “X factors” there.

His poll is not an outlier either. Mainstreet had UCP+2.1 provincially yesterday, which is pretty much in line with all of the pollsters except for Janet Brown. Keep in mind that can reflect anything from a narrow NDP lead to a UCP lead in the high single digits.

He is seeing something in the underlying data that tells him the NDP is going to beat that topline number. He has talked about what that is (riding polls, detailed crosstabs, etc.) but unfortunately none of it is public yet because he’s paywalled a lot of the data.

One indicator to look at is where the parties are putting resources. Parties have reasonably good information about what is happening at the constituency level. They don’t make that information public, but you can draw some reasonable conclusions from their actions.

So for instance: with days to go until E-day, and you see a leader campaigning in a riding that his/her party lost by double digits four years ago, that tells you the party believes this seat is going to be much closer this time around. Conversely, a leader normally does not campaign in places where the party WON by double digits either, unless they are seeing an indication that they need to play defence.

So where are the candidates?

Notley was in Medicine Hat and Calgary Fish-Creek yesterday. Today she is campaigning in SW Calgary.

Meanwhile, Smith was at the Grey Eagle Casino, Calgary Elbow, and Calgary Cross.

Draw your own conclusions. The only one I can draw is both parties expect Calgary to be the battleground, and believe it will be close.

[Paulie Walnuts]

A quick glance on CTV show called Alberta Primetime showed NDP 49% in Calgary and UCP 42% I didn't get a chance to see what it was about properly.

[Yoho]

It looked like a decent turn out for Smith last night.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1662225204297474050

It will be really interesting if she pulls it off, it would mean essentially people have chosen to ignore the negative pervasive media.

[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by Yoho

It looked like a decent turn out for Smith last night.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1662225204297474050

It will be really interesting if she pulls it off, it would mean essentially people have chosen to ignore the negative pervasive media.

No, it means people have chosen to ignore what a nutbar Smith is.

[GirlySports]

We dont need the negative media to hear what Danielle Smith is saying. It's all out there. it's just your interpretation of it.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

A quick glance on CTV show called Alberta Primetime showed NDP 49% in Calgary and UCP 42% I didn't get a chance to see what it was about properly.

Might have been the ThinkHQ poll that came out recently, showing NDP leading 49-43 in Calgary?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by eddly

This is just a few of the issues on my mind.

I can't fully support the NDP's economic direction. What the NDP is proposing is simplistic from what I have seen. Raise corporate taxes. Lower insurance rates.

What happens if corporate taxes are raised?

Why are insurance rates high? What happens if they are lowered?

I guess I just want these two things explained further in terms of why they reached the solution they are proposing and what impact they think it will have.

There are several reasons why insurance rates are increasing and it isn't simply because of inflation. Claims are more frequent and severe. Your car... your house... they are more expensive to replace compared to 10 years ago. Catastrophic events like wild fires are more frequent. Even if these events occur in the US for example, it still raises the cost of your insurance. Insurance companies get reinsurance to protect themselves to a degree. This reinsurance they are required to buy (regulation) is increasing in cost dramatically.

NDP's playbook is to tax the rich into submission with the expectation that they will gladly take it.

Have you ever in your life been able to 'fully support' a party you've voted for? Seems like you're probably holding the NDP to an unreasonable standard that you have never applied to previous PC gov'ts. You're never going to get a full explanation on the details of every single campaign promise (from either side), and every campaign promise will be inherently optimistic. Whoopty frig, this should be obvious.

And sure, there is nuance to something like corporate tax rates or insurance. IMO there is no single right or wrong policy for either, and even if you don't love a particular direction, it's so far from disqualifying compared to the many many many proven UCP transgressions so far.

Of course, I could spend just as much time complaining about the UCP. UCP doesn't have the answers either. I won't even entertain UCP with them calling transgender children poo.

Could you? Or could you actually spend 10x longer complaining about them?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Yoho

It looked like a decent turn out for Smith last night.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1662225204297474050

It will be really interesting if she pulls it off, it would mean essentially people have chosen to ignore the negative pervasive media.

How is it negative when the media is reporting things Smith has said in the past? Voters have a right to know everything about their candidate. Smith for the most part brought this upon herself. It would be the same for Notley.

I know Danielle and have talked to her on a number of occasions and for me the issue is about trust. She says one thing and then flip flops in order to gain approval from voters. What does she truly believe? I don't know which is why I can't vote for her.

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1662178646390390785

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

While Quito Maggi is predicting the NDP to win in a nail-biter, EKOS is predicting the UCP will wind up ahead and win a majority on the strength of a 6% lead in the Calgary CMA:

https://www.ekospolitics.com/index.p...ce-in-alberta/

Both agree it will be very close. And at least EKOS is showing its work, so there’s that. I haven’t seen what Maggi’s looking at other than the Mainstreet tracker (which still shows the UCP ahead, albeit narrowly.

New Abacus poll will be out after the weekend apparently.

This is where I think the pollsters and polling fall down. The messaging from pollsters right now should be. This election is within the margin of error of our polling and with the number of polls and sample sizes, non-randomness of samples and the election coming down to how a few key ridings move that the polling shows slight favourites either way.

Both Janet Brown and Mainstreets (but especially main streets) confidence in their numbers does not appear founded in the accuracy of the data. Pooling and modeling needs to recognize its limits.

It makes it pretty boring to say the race is close enough that we can’t make definitive predictions.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Might have been the ThinkHQ poll that came out recently, showing NDP leading 49-43 in Calgary?

I think so. I wasn't paying close attention until the end.

They had two guys on one in Okotoks and both seemed to think nothing will change over the weekend and the numbers should stick.

Cautiously optimistic is how I feel right now.

3 more NDP votes cast from my household today and yesterday.