According to various pundits and reporters, there were no surprises in last week’s Progressive Conservative leadership election.
They are, what I like to call, wrong.
Yes, the overall results from the first ballot did closely match a poll done prior to the vote. However, when you take a closer look at the breakdown, there were several outcomes that will keep campaign strategists and spinners working late into the night.
Here are a few of the surprises I noticed:
• Total numbers – The total number of first ballot votes cast was down by about 38,000 from the 2006 PC leadership race. Was it due to farmers being busy harvesting, as PC party brass say, or is it a rejection of the party itself? Until the final numbers come in after the second ballot on Oct. 1, it’s anyone’s guess.
• Poor turnout locally - Only about 650 Airdrie-Chestermere PC party members voted. That places the local riding 32nd in Alberta, despite the fact that it is one of Alberta’s most populous ridings. Airdrie-Chestermere MLA Rob Anderson, who defected from the PCs to the Wildrose Party, should be smiling.
• We support… Rick Orman? – If Airdrie-Chestermere were to choose the next PC leader it would be Rick Orman. He received 192 votes, edging province-wide leader Gary Mar by 11. Orman won just three other ridings in Alberta, all of them in Calgary. So why Orman? Most of his support seems to have come from former backers of Ted Morton. In 2006 Morton was the choice of 57 per cent of PC supporters in Airdrie-Chestermere. This year he garnered just 16 per cent. Ouch.
• Morton’s collapse – One of Airdrie’s neighbouring MLAs may want to think about leaving politics. You don’t need to be a professor of political science to see that Morton has lost his edge. After claiming 25,614 first ballot votes in 2006, he managed just 6,962 this year. He won only three ridings, by a combined 141 votes. He only won his own riding by 34. Moving to another riding prior to the next provincial election may not even help. He was most popular in Highwood, edging Mar by 71, but that riding will be contested by Wildrose leader Danielle Smith.
• Gary Mar’s support: The front-running candidate to become Alberta’ next premier has much wider support than first thought. He swept Edmonton, edged Allison Redford in Calgary with 12 of 24 polls and clobbered Doug Horner in the rest of Alberta. This is great news for former Airdrie Mayor Linda Bruce, who volunteered with Mar’s campaign and openly speculated about running as a candidate in the next election. However, with such wide support, Mar should have won the leadership on the first ballot.
He took just 40.8 per cent, pointing to the fact that he won 20 of the ridings by less than 100 votes. He won Drumheller-Stettler by nine, Banff-Cochrane by three, Drayton Valley-Calmar by just one. Redford and Horner may accurately claim that Mar’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Predictions in politics are suicide. Election results, like polls, are just snapshot of opinion at any given time, and given the exceedingly small sample size provided by the first ballot, anything can happen.
However, one thing seems certain - Gary Mar is the man to beat. Given Redford and Horner’s divergent views on the record of the past provincial government, it is unlikely either will pick up support from each other’s camps.
In order for Horner to win, Mar and Redford have to take each other out with a divisive health care debate and pray the Stelmach machine can put him over the top.
In order for Redford to win, thousands of new people much join the PC party before Oct. 1.
As long as the race remains uneventful and second ballot turnout remains low, Gary Mar will be the next premier of Alberta.
Then the real race begins.
