Alberta Provincial Politics

[trtcttc]

Calgary Confluence looks weird to me.
View attachment 691935

What does Cliff Bungalow, Mayland Heights, Mission and Forest Lawn have in common?

Not sure if that's rhetorical, but it's pretty contiguous that I don't have an issue with it. It wouldn't look weird if they added Bridgeland from Mountainview, but I'm guessing that decreases the population of Mountainview too much. It's trying to balance the population between ridings without affecting existing ridings too much.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Including mission is fine by me because this new riding also includes Victoria Park and East Village. In 8 years when they look at this again those areas will likely continue to get more and more dense.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Calgary Confluence looks weird to me.


What does Cliff Bungalow, Mayland Heights, Mission and Forest Lawn have in common?

Inglewood Drive-In?
Higher ethnic diversity than Mountain View, Elbow and Peigan but lower than Buffalo and East?
Relatively high levels of multifamily and infill housing?
Good views of Stampede fireworks?
57,000 people when combined with East Village, Inglewood, Ramsay, Albert Park, Manchester and Southview?

It's a bit of a mix, but the problem is that inner-city urban communities have much more distinct characteristics than the more cookie-cutter suburban ones, so it's always going to be hard to combine adjacent communities into somewhere that feels the 'same' everywhere. Especially when there's the relatively firm population limit.

I don't think these communities are all the same to be sure, but there are common elements between them; I've pulled out some themes that these communities (or at least subgroups of these communities) tend to share. (These are somewhat relative; many of these are higher for these communities than the rest of the city -- for instance, the city as a whole is 31% renters, the 'low renter' areas here are more like 45% and the 'high renter' areas are more like 70%). There's not one thing that unifies all of these communities but they all share aspects with each other.

The thing that blew my mind is the existing Calgary-Buffalo (Downtown, Beltline, Mission, Cliff Bungalow, Inglewood and Ramsay) has gone from 50K as of 2016 to 77K in just 9 years. Crazy to see it like that!

And interesting that Edmonton went from 6 ridings in the broad inner city down to 5, while Calgary essentially went from 5 to 6. (Elbow, Mountain View, Currie and Klein are largely unchanged.) I think infill is working!

All that said, it is funny to read the report and see that they split Bowness and Montgomery all like:

But when they made the new Calgary-Confluence they were all like:

 

[ByeByeBaby]

So my best guess,
UCP lose 2 rural ridings but pickup one Cochrane/Airdrie riding.
NDP loses 1 urban Edmonton riding but can potentially win 2 new suburban Edmonton ridings.
NDP gains one central Calgary riding and can likely win the new North-East riding.

Also under the old ridings, if NDP won all the swing ridings the result would be:
45-42 NDP
Now it would be:
48-41 NDP

Edit:
Calgary-Acadia is adding Lake Bonavista so it will be harder for ndp since they barely won that one.
Banff riding is adding Jasper and losing springbank so it will be easier for ndp

The Cochrane/Airdrie riding isn't really a pickup; we've gone from essentially 4 ridings in the Calgary halo to 5 - but the apparent extra riding is really just due to realigning of other rural areas; the Crossfield/Beiseker/Irriciana area was added to the halo, and the Millarville/Diamond Valley area was moved out of a halo riding into a more rural one. With the same votes as last election, this wouldn't be a UCP gain. The two ridings removed (one in central - mostly Rimbey-Rocky Mounain House-Sundre; and one in the north - mostly Peace River) are actual UCP losses, though.

The new NC riding (basically between Deerfoot and Centre St) seems like a true swing that should be high on the NDP's list.
Confluence might be closer than people think - 60% of the population is east of Deerfoot, almost all in polling stations that voted UCP. The NDP should win it (they won the western polls mostly in the 60-65% range, while the UCP won the eastern ones more in the 55% range and lost one), but it's not the cakewalk that Mountain View or new Buffalo are.

On the east side, the ridings are shuffling in an interesting way; the UCP won East and Cross last time, while the NDP won Falconridge. The split between East-Cross-Falconridge used to be along Memorial and 32nd; now they're on 16th and McKnight, which would have given Cross to the NDP last time, but it's been combined with the area around Conrich.

The west will be harder for the NDP; there were two ridings they lost in very close races. North West gained UCP-leaning Arbour Lake, while Bow lost NDP-leaning Montgomery. Interesting question with Bow is whether the new residents in the more urban Trinity Hills and West Springs areas vote like the suburbanites surrounding them, or if they have more of an inner city approach. (Also, their incumbent UCP candidate - education minister Nicolaides - is facing a recall petition and isn't all that popular these days.)

Acadia's not only gained Lake Bonavista, it's lost Kingsland and Manchester.

One interesting riding is Mackenzie in the far north of the province; it's made mostly of the Peace River and Lesser Slave Lake ridings; however, most of the towns (Peace River, Grimshaw, Slave Lake, High Prairie) that had strong UCP vote are in other ridings, and the riding has a large indigenous population. With the right candidate, it could be in play for the NDP.

 

[kiggupiggu]

The Cochrane/Airdrie riding isn't really a pickup; we've gone from essentially 4 ridings in the Calgary halo to 5 - but the apparent extra riding is really just due to realigning of other rural areas; the Crossfield/Beiseker/Irriciana area was added to the halo, and the Millarville/Diamond Valley area was moved out of a halo riding into a more rural one. With the same votes as last election, this wouldn't be a UCP gain. The two ridings removed (one in central - mostly Rimbey-Rocky Mounain House-Sundre; and one in the north - mostly Peace River) are actual UCP losses, though.

The new NC riding (basically between Deerfoot and Centre St) seems like a true swing that should be high on the NDP's list.
Confluence might be closer than people think - 60% of the population is east of Deerfoot, almost all in polling stations that voted UCP. The NDP should win it (they won the western polls mostly in the 60-65% range, while the UCP won the eastern ones more in the 55% range and lost one), but it's not the cakewalk that Mountain View or new Buffalo are.
View attachment 692289

On the east side, the ridings are shuffling in an interesting way; the UCP won East and Cross last time, while the NDP won Falconridge. The split between East-Cross-Falconridge used to be along Memorial and 32nd; now they're on 16th and McKnight, which would have given Cross to the NDP last time, but it's been combined with the area around Conrich.

The west will be harder for the NDP; there were two ridings they lost in very close races. North West gained UCP-leaning Arbour Lake, while Bow lost NDP-leaning Montgomery. Interesting question with Bow is whether the new residents in the more urban Trinity Hills and West Springs areas vote like the suburbanites surrounding them, or if they have more of an inner city approach. (Also, their incumbent UCP candidate - education minister Nicolaides - is facing a recall petition and isn't all that popular these days.)

Acadia's not only gained Lake Bonavista, it's lost Kingsland and Manchester.

One interesting riding is Mackenzie in the far north of the province; it's made mostly of the Peace River and Lesser Slave Lake ridings; however, most of the towns (Peace River, Grimshaw, Slave Lake, High Prairie) that had strong UCP vote are in other ridings, and the riding has a large indigenous population. With the right candidate, it could be in play for the NDP.

Alberta Interim Boundaries Transposition

Alberta's electoral boundaries commission has put out an initial look-see at the new 89-seat map

bluntobjects.substack.com

I found someone did a transposition of all votes in the new ridings. They have ndp gaining 3 and ucp losing 1.

Ndp fairly safely wins the new edmonton ridings and the new central calgary riding.

The ndp barely wins the new nc calgary riding.

Ndp loses Acadia but gains Cross.

Calgary-Bow and Calgary-east become harder for ndp.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Alberta Interim Boundaries Transposition

Alberta's electoral boundaries commission has put out an initial look-see at the new 89-seat map

bluntobjects.substack.com

I found someone did a transposition of all votes in the new ridings. They have ndp gaining 3 and ucp losing 1.

Ndp fairly safely wins the new edmonton ridings and the new central calgary riding.

The ndp barely wins the new nc calgary riding.

Ndp loses Acadia but gains Cross.

Calgary-Bow and Calgary-east become harder for ndp.

A new PC Party, if well organized, along with a UCP split between PC and Republican/Wildrose completely changes the math to the point Alberta might turn into a minority legislature. Not the worst thing, slow down some of the crazy.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Alberta Interim Boundaries Transposition

Alberta's electoral boundaries commission has put out an initial look-see at the new 89-seat map

bluntobjects.substack.com

I found someone did a transposition of all votes in the new ridings. They have ndp gaining 3 and ucp losing 1.

Ndp fairly safely wins the new edmonton ridings and the new central calgary riding.

The ndp barely wins the new nc calgary riding.

Ndp loses Acadia but gains Cross.

Calgary-Bow and Calgary-east become harder for ndp.

That's awesome; thanks for sharing the link.

Here's the swing ridings (assuming no changes from the last election, which is obviously wrong).

The turning point riding (would switch from UCP to NDP majority) is Calgary-Acadia, last time it was Calgary-East.

 

[lemongrab]

The west will be harder for the NDP; there were two ridings they lost in very close races. North West gained UCP-leaning Arbour Lake, while Bow lost NDP-leaning Montgomery. Interesting question with Bow is whether the new residents in the more urban Trinity Hills and West Springs areas vote like the suburbanites surrounding them, or if they have more of an inner city approach. (Also, their incumbent UCP candidate - education minister Nicolaides - is facing a recall petition and isn't all that popular these days.)

Acadia's not only gained Lake Bonavista, it's lost Kingsland and Manchester.

One interesting riding is Mackenzie in the far north of the province; it's made mostly of the Peace River and Lesser Slave Lake ridings; however, most of the towns (Peace River, Grimshaw, Slave Lake, High Prairie) that had strong UCP vote are in other ridings, and the riding has a large indigenous population. With the right candidate, it could be in play for the NDP.

CGY-Bow also contains Rockland Park, which had very few residents in May 2023, but should have a several thousand by 2027. Lots of young families, but more typically suburban. (actually Rockland Park is in North West riding) Greenwood-GreenBriar should have more, too. I think West District will lean pretty blue.

Mackenzie is interesting because it's mostly Scott Sinclair's (aligned with Peter Guthrie) riding, but the towns of Slave Lake and High Prairie are now cut out. No idea if he'll run again or which riding he would do, but it would be great if an uber rural riding like this went anything other than UCP Wild Rose. The changes probably make his incumbency harder though.

 

[lemongrab]

That's awesome; thanks for sharing the link.

Here's the swing ridings (assuming no changes from the last election, which is obviously wrong).

Have you found data that ascribes advance polls to their specific voting areas? I've just been using this page, but maybe there's a better option? https://officialresults.elections.ab.ca/

 

[darwink]

Have you found data that ascribes advance polls to their specific voting areas? I've just been using this page, but maybe there's a better option? https://officialresults.elections.ab.ca/

That data doesn't exist. The parties can do a bit better estimating, since they know who voted in the advance polls, but it is a lot of squeeze for very little juice. I suspect they just topped up the polls with a share of the advance vote. It would be close enough.

 

[lemongrab]

That data doesn't exist. The parties can do a bit better estimating, since they know who voted in the advance polls, but it is a lot of squeeze for very little juice. I suspect they just topped up the polls with a share of the advance vote. It would be close enough.

That makes sense. A couple interesting ones that jumped out to me were:

Country/Harvest/Coventry Hills. Election day they were roughly UCP +350 over 4500 votes. The other side of Stoney from them (Livingston?) went NDP+120 over 1000 votes. The only convenient advance voting for them all was at Vivo, which went 2800-2400 in NDPs favour (but there were way more other eligible voters south of Stoney than there were in Livingston)

And In Edgemont, which NDP won by 284 overall, the Hamptons went 698UCP-557NDP on election day. That same location was used for advance voting and went 4078-3252 for UCP. The other advance station and vote anywhere went strongly NDP. Election day everywhere in the riding was quite close. Hampton's election day turnout was quite low relative to its population, so I think it's a simple case that most of them voted advance because it was equally convenient as election day. But overall it would be a hard riding to ascribe advance votes.

 

[zagox]

That's awesome; thanks for sharing the link.

Here's the swing ridings (assuming no changes from the last election, which is obviously wrong).
View attachment 692381
The turning point riding (would switch from UCP to NDP majority) is Calgary-Acadia, last time it was Calgary-East.

Popular vote margin in 2023 was 8.6% for UCP, if all ridings moved equally NDP would have to be within 3.7% to win a majority with the old map.

With the new map, NDP could theoretically lose the popular vote by 5.0% and win a majority in an identical election.

The path to an NDP majority by winning almost all Calgary/Edmonton seats by smaller margins while losing by huge margins in rural areas just got materially easier.