Last week, Innovative Research published the results of their latest election survey, and it’s not good news for Jason Kenney and his governing United Conservative Party.
Between the 10th and 12th of September, Innovative Research asked 200 Alberta residents who they’d vote for if an election were held that day. Among decided voters, 44% said they planned to vote for the NDP, compared to only 31% for the UCP.
This is the highest the NDP has placed in Innovative Research surveys since the 2015 election. And while the UCP are up slightly over August’s numbers, they’re still at their second lowest since the party’s founding in 2017.
| NDP | 44% |
| UCP | 31% |
| Liberals | 8% |
| Wildrose Independent | 7% |
| Alberta Party | 5% |
| Green | 5% |
| Other | 1% |
When we include voters who are decided but leaning to a particular party, the NDP drop to 37% and the UCP to 26%.
| NDP | 37% |
| UCP | 26% |
| Liberals | 6% |
| Wildrose Independent | 6% |
| Alberta Party | 4% |
| Green | 4% |
| Undecided | 11% |
| Wouldn’t vote/none | 4% |
Not only do the NDP lead the other parties by at least a 13-point margin, even when including leaning voters, but they’re leading in all areas of the province.
| Calgary | Edmonton | Rest of Alberta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NDP | 39% | 48% | 46% |
| UCP | 27% | 24% | 40% |
| Liberals | 16% | 6% | 0% |
| Wildrose | 9% | 4% | 9% |
| Green | 6% | 8% | 0% |
| Alberta Party | 3% | 9% | 4% |
| Other | 0% | 2% | 0% |
Finally, NDP had the strongest party loyalty, with 98% of people identifying with the party saying they plan to vote for them. The UCP were at only 63%.
Interesting, 12% of the respondents identifying with the UCP said they planned to vote NDP, yet only 1% of NDP identifiers planned to vote UCP. Plus 3% of UCPers plan to not vote at all, compared to 0% for the NDP.
| NDP | UCP | Lib. | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NDP | 98% | 12% | 16% | 22% |
| UCP | 1% | 63% | 3% | 34% |
| Liberals | 0% | 2% | 70% | 0% |
| Alberta Party | 1% | 3% | 6% | 12% |
| Wildrose | 0% | 13% | 0% | 7% |
| Green | 0% | 1% | 0% | 22% |
| Other | 0% | 0% | 0% | 3% |
| Undecided | 0% | 4% | 5% | 1% |
| Won’t vote | 0% | 3% | 0% | 0% |
When participants were asked who their second choice party was, they chose Liberals the most, but the Wildrose were very close behind.
| Liberals | 20% |
| Wildrose | 19% |
| Alberta Party | 12% |
| UCP | 9% |
| NDP | 5% |
| Greens | 5% |
| Undecided | 23% |
| Wouldn’t vote/none | 8% |
Only 5% of participants when asked to rate how satisfied they are with the current provincial government said that they’re “very satisfied”. It was 9 times that for very dissatisfied.
| Very dissatisfied | 45% |
| Somewhat dissatisfied | 26% |
| Somewhat satisfied | 21% |
| Very satisfied | 5% |
This is the lowest level since at least the summer of 2016 that the provincial government in Alberta has received, regardless of party.
Finally, when considering just the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 16% of respondents said that the UCP government’s restrictions are about right.
More than half say the restrictions are either somewhat too loose (24%) or far too loose (30%). Only 12% say they’re far too tight, and just 15% say they’re somewhat too tight.
This time last year, 46% of respondents thought the level of restrictions was about right.
