The NDP turned blue(ish) to woo conservative voters. It didn't deliver a victory

The NDP made a bet last year. They saw a narrow road to victory by persuading progressive conservatives voters to go orange for one election.

Rachel Notley's party would turn blue(ish) speaking to them during the campaign. The logo. The policies. The debate attire. 

That goat path to triumph, hedged on disenchantment with the United Conservatives' turn to the right, never materialized. On Monday, Danielle Smith's party won another majority government. 

Sunil Shah, an electrical engineer and lifelong conservative voter in Calgary, was torn between the NDP and UCP until election day — when he marked the ballot for his local UCP candidate.

"I wanted that tax cut," he said, a nod to the UCP's first campaign announcement.

A single-issue voter on economic issues, Shah mentioned he was nervous about the NDP's proposed corporate tax increase too. 

Despite all the work to bleed the conservative vote, the UCP's share of popular support was down only 2.3 per cent compared to 2019's results.

Smith and the UCP lost supporters to the NDP, but a negligible amount. Most of the 11.3-point popular vote increase for Notley's crew came from the Alberta Party, whose result dropped by more than eight per cent. 

The NDP bet on those light-blue centrists, while the UCP suspected those waffling former PC voters were bluffing. So what happened to them?

Couches vs. polling stations

"One of the most pronounced things that we saw was that these reluctant voters just stayed home," said Janet Brown, the head of Janet Brown Opinion Research. 

This election had 62.4 per cent turnout, down from 67.5 per cent in 2019 (still higher than most provinces).  

She added her data indicates undecideds and those former PC voters broke the same way as decided voters on election night. The UCP got 52.6 per cent of the popular vote. The NDP got 44 per cent.

"The NDP successfully brought the left and the centre-left together, but Danielle Smith was able to hang onto enough of the right and the centre-right to win."

The NDP led Alberta polls almost exclusively for two years. Brown's polling showed a recovery in support for the UCP during April (prior to the campaign) and a further rebound after the debate in mid May. 

"People who had their doubts about Smith saw her looking pretty decisive and pretty competent. And I think they said, 'OK, I'm going to give her a chance,'" Brown said. 

The dying days of the campaign suggested the UCP was able to solidify that mushy middle and pull Smith's approval/disapproval ratings even with Notley's. 

(We reached out to both parties to talk to the strategists behind these campaigns, but they declined.)

Shah may have marked a reluctant 'X' in the UCP column, but he's open about being no fan of Smith's influence on the party. 

"Moderates and centrists essentially need to take over the [UCP] and move the policies closer to the centre."

The battleground's orange tinge

Where the NDP did make a successful pitch was in the battleground, white-collar city of Calgary, where they picked up 14 of the 26 seats (official results are to come next Thursday).

The party won the popular vote in Calgary this election (49.3 per cent NDP, 48.2 per cent UCP), compared to a 19-point difference in the UCP's favour in 2019.

The six closest races in Calgary were decided by a combined vote margin of 851. On election night, the NDP captured Calgary-Acadia by seven votes and Calgary-Glenmore by 30 (both likely headed for recounts). The UCP narrowly held on to Calgary-North by 113 votes and Calgary-North West by 149 votes. 

Tallies from experts estimate as few as 1,300 vote switches could have swung the election.

"Lend us your vote," Notley would say. That line was repeated so often during that campaign by candidates and strategists that it could have been a dangerous drinking game. 

The request was heeded by former MLAs and federal MPs, including the likes of Blake Pedersen, Doug Griffiths, Lee Richardson and Thomas Lukaszuk. 

Lukaszuk, a former Progressive Conservative deputy premier, was openly campaigning at the doors for the NDP.

"People in Alberta identify themselves as conservatives. It's almost as if it was their baptized name or a religious or cultural affiliation," Lukaszuk said. 

"They may fantasize for a while about supporting another camp, [but] many Albertans find it almost impossible in their own mind to go to a ballot box and cast a vote for anybody other than conservative." 

Lukaszuk says the NDP have hit their ceiling in terms of grabbing voters from the centre-right, for now.

"Their platform was palatable, …their biggest problem is their branding," he said. If you were raised conservative, he added, that three-letter acronym is a bad word.

Absorbing third-party support and reeling in some grumpy conservatives wasn't enough to propel the NDP to victory.

This election's result suggests without finding a way to attract bigger chunks of UCP supporters, Notley's party may continue to face an impasse of brambles on that goat path to government.