Don’t Underestimate the Power of Outsider Candidates

In the 2019 provincial election, Kaycee Madu was the only UCP candidate to win a riding within Edmonton’s borders. But he won Edmonton South West by a narrow margin — defeating the NDP’s John Archer by just 715 votes.

It would be too easy to say that Madu beat Archer in a close, two-horse race. In fact, they weren’t the only candidates running — and the fact that the Alberta Party got 2,668 votes in that riding is something that definitely influenced the Archer-Madu race.

In Edmonton – West Henday, the NDP’s Jon Carson edged out the UCP’s Nicole Williams by just 518 votes; the Alberta Independence Party got 239 votes, the Liberals got 311 and the Alberta Party got 2,337.  The two front-runners lost potential votes to parties that really had no hope of winning.

Could similar  scenarios play out in hotly contested ridings when the votes are counted on May 29?

The election debate featured just two party leaders. No one is framing this election as anything but Rachel Notley and the NDP vs. Danielle Smith and the UCP. The polls are predicting some razor-thin margins between the parties. And, in a race where some seats could be decided by hundreds of votes or less, the fringe parties come into play.

Sure, we don’t expect to see seats going anywhere but to the orange and blue teams on election day, but that doesn’t mean the parties on the outside of the mainstream aren’t going to have an influence.

“We know that in a two-party race, the minor parties can influence what can happen in an election,” said Feodor Snagovsky, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta.

According to 338 Canada, 16 of the 87 ridings are “toss-ups,” that is, the races between the New Democrats and the United Conservatives are too close to call. In all of these ridings but one (Calgary-North is the only true two-horse race), the presence of outsider candidates could bleed just enough votes from one side or the other to tilt a race.

To be fair, Snagovsky warned against putting too much stock in sites like 338, which break it down riding by riding. “The data just isn’t there,” he said. “We don’t know enough to get a true look at the ridings.” He said it’s better to look where votes were close in the 2019  election, and expect that those ridings will go down to the wire once again.

On the right, you’ve got the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition, which, as you may have guessed, should be a threat to Smith. And Artur Pawlowski’s Solidarity Movement of Alberta, which pledges to “outlaw 15-minute/smart cities planning,” “end NetZero” and “end gun grabs,” might be the source of comic relief for some of us, but on that far right fringe, they could cost the UCP in several Calgary too-close-to-call ridings. And Pawlowski upped the ante Wednesday, claiming he was offered a safe seat by the UCP, or a payoff for not running at all. To be fair, none of Pawlowski’s recent claims can be verified.

The Alberta Party and the Alberta Liberals occupy the middle. Once they were parties that ran full slates of candidates across the province. Now, they have a smattering of people stretched thin across a few ridings. But they do exist in some of these contested ridings.

And the Green Party? In a close riding, you would think the Greens could be the UCP’s best friends, snatching a handful of potential votes away from the NDP.

But, Snagovsky warns us that it’s not that simple. “Voters are more complicated than that,” he said. While many of us might assume that those voting Green would otherwise have supported the NDP, Snagovsky warned that, in reality, that might be true of only 60 or 70 per cent of that group. There are conservatives who vote Green, and we can’t discount that the Alberta Party and the Liberals borrow from both sides. So, while the fringes can affect the front-runners, it’s not safe to assume which candidates are being hurt the most.

Fringe Festival

These are toss-up ridings that could be influenced by candidates from minor parties

(AL: Alberta Liberals)
(AP: Alberta Party)
(SMOA: Solidarity Movement of Alberta)
(WLC: Wildrose Loyalty Coalition)

Banff-Kananaskis
Green
SMOA

Calgary-Acadia
Green
SMOA
WLC

Calgary-Beddington
AL
AP

Calgary-Bow
AP
SMOA

Calgary-Cross
Green
SMOA

Calgary-East
Communists
SMOA

Calgary-Edgemont
AP
SMOA
WLC

Calgary-Elbow
AP
SMOA (leader Artur Pawlowski runs, here)

Calgary-Foothills
SMOA

Calgary-Glenmore
Green

Calgary-North
None

Calgary-North West
AP
SMOA

Edmonton-South West
Green

Lethbridge-East
AL

Morinville-St. Albert
AP
Green

Sherwood Park
AL
AP