'This really suggests that the race is a lot tighter than people were expecting. Among the top three, it's anybody's to win.'
Author of the article: Don Braid • Calgary Herald
Brian Jean, premier of Alberta?
That’s the startling result from the first detailed poll of the leadership race, compiled for the Calgary Herald and Postmedia by Leger.
The pollster says that among UCP supporters surveyed, former Wildrose leader Jean wins on the sixth ballot, beating fellow finalist Travis Toews by 53 per cent to 47 per cent.
By that time, Danielle Smith has been knocked out of the race. She scores no higher than 31 per cent in any round (on Ballot 5) after starting out at just 27 per cent on the first ballot.
The mock vote run by Leger includes only people who identify as UCP supporters if an election were held today. It was not confined to those who hold party memberships, the only people allowed to mail in a leadership ballot.
Nobody claims this poll of 316 supporters actually predicts the result to be announced Oct 6. Leger executive vice-president Ian Large says it suggests “a statistical dead heat” among Jean, former treasurer Toews and Smith.
But what it does show, as Large adds, is that Smith’s campaign “is getting lots of the oxygen but not necessarily the support.”
That will be welcome news to Jean and Toews, who have been labouring under the widespread impression that Smith is running away with the contest.
But there’s no good news for the other four candidates: former cabinet ministers Rebecca Schulz, Leela Aheer and Rajan Sawhney, as well as Independent MLA Todd Loewen.
None would get more than four per cent on the first ballot, according to Leger. They’d all be knocked out of the running by the fourth ballot.
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Large says he was surprised that the mock vote ran to six ballots as secondary choices were distributed.
“I was expecting that maybe three ballots would have got somebody to 50 per cent plus one. This really suggests that the race is a lot tighter than people were expecting. Among the top three, it’s anybody’s to win.”
The survey was conducted over the Labour Day weekend, before a barrage of attacks on Smith’s Sovereignty Act from Premier Jason Kenney and Smith’s opponents.
On Thursday, Toews, Sawhney, Jean and Aheer held a joint news conference to attack Smith’s plan. This was a most unusual group event for candidates during a leadership campaign.
Jean called Smith’s strategy a “fairy tale.” Sawhney said the act would be “worthless virtue signalling.” Toews added: “It’s political bluster and won’t deliver.” All four, including Aheer, said they would vote against the act if Smith introduced it as premier.
UCP members have been able to vote since their ballots started arriving in the mail this week. Many thousands surely haven’t mailed their ballots yet, so the continuing opposition to Smith’s campaign could cut into her support (although some in other campaigns say it could further motivate her ardent and angry backers).
That candidates’ news conference was partly motivated by Kenney’s fierce attack on Smith’s ideas. Candidates were angry at him for starting a personal feud with Smith and taking attention away from them.
Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie, who backs Smith, was furious too. On Facebook, he said Kenney promised he wouldn’t get involved in the campaign. “His conduct most certainly broke the pledge he gave to caucus,” Guthrie wrote.
He also alleged that Kenney’s conduct damages the UCP itself. “He is becoming a walking billboard advertiser for the NDP.”
At this point, the overall news for the UCP is promising. The Leger poll shows that even with leadership up in the air, the UCP has moved ahead of the NDP in popular support, leading by 44 per cent to 41 per cent.
The NDP continues to have majority support in Edmonton (52 per cent). But the UCP holds 44 per cent in Calgary and 53 per cent in the rest of the province.
Whether this UCP support goes up or down after the new leader is announced is a question impossible to answer. But we can be pretty sure that at this point, it’s no runaway for Danielle Smith.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.
Twitter: @DonBraid
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