Election Heat is On- Alberta Liberals Wooing Centrist Votes

Edmonton (ATB): The United Conservative Party maintain nearly a 25% lead over the governing NDP, while Rachel Notley’s approval ratings have improved since November.
Those are the findings from Mainstreet Research’s latest UltraPoll, a conglomeration of ten provincial polls. The poll surveyed 893 Albertans between January 15th and 16th 2019. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.28% and is accurate 19 times out of 20.
“Both the governing NDP and the UCP have lost some support since our last Alberta poll in November,” said Quito Maggi, President and CEO of Mainstreet Research.
Among decided and leaning voters, the UCP with Jason Kenney as leader have 52.3% (-2% from Mainstreet’s November poll), while the governing NDP led by Rachel Notley have 27.8% (-1.3%). The Alberta Party led by Stephen Mandel have 7.7% (+2.2%), and the Alberta Liberal Party with David Khan at the helm have 6.1% (+0.9%).
The Green Party of Alberta led by Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes has 3% (+0.3%), while Derek Fildebrandt’s Freedom Conservative Party has 2.4% (-0.1%).
The poll also asked about the favourability ratings of five of the party leaders and found that Notley has a -12.4% net favourability rating while Kenney has a +6.6% rating.
But Maggi notes that these numbers are a big improvement for Notley since November and that this should give the NDP some hope in the next election.
“In November we found a 35% gap between Notley and Kenney in terms of net favourability, but this month the gap between the two has narrowed to 19%”, said Maggi.
The amount of Albertans that have a positive impression of Notley (36.9%) is roughly the same as those who think positively about Kenney (39.7%) with the difference being within the margin of error.
“The UCP is polling higher than Kenney’s favourability numbers again this month, while Notley is polling above the NDP this month,” concluded Maggi. “This shows that Notley is clearly an asset to the NDP, while the same can’t be said for Kenney and the UCP.”