Explaining Calgary's orange crush on the NDP
What (or who) is motivating voters? Our in-depth statistical analysis reveals factors
EDITOR'S NOTE: CBC News commissioned this public opinion research in late March, roughly two months before Albertans vote in the next election on May 29.
As with all polls, this one is a snapshot in time.
This analysis is one in a series of articles to come out of this research.
For some, a single still image captured last week distilled the essence of Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party's two big political problems with battleground Calgary voters — health care and believability.
The photo was snapped by a Canadian Press photographer at a campaign-like event where the Alberta premier made her never "pay out of pocket" promise for medical services. The photo appears to show a health-care worker using salty sign language while the UCP leader spoke.
Smith's critics quickly claimed the Twitter-trending picture encapsulated Smith's credibility problem on health care.
"We know that her Achilles heel is that people don't necessarily believe what [Smith] says," said Lisa Young, a University of Calgary political science professor.
The finger, or thumbs up?
Concerns about the UCP's ability to provide honest government — coupled with lingering doubts over the party's commitment to universal health care — offer the best indicators of NDP support in Calgary, according to statistical analysis of data from a recent CBC News poll.
The traditional horse-race poll suggests the NDP could win as many as 18 of Calgary's 26 seats. A deeper dive into the data tells us more about what's specifically influencing voter behaviour in Alberta's largest city.
Using a statistical technique called a regression analysis, CBC News's vote choice modelling helps predict what demographics (e.g., age, income, gender), political ideals, issues and leadership impressions are driving Calgarians' political decision-making.
Imagine a funnel of sorts where all the polling data flows through a computer to mathematically sort out the most meaningful data.
Here's what that indicates: the best predictors of why a Calgarian might lean toward an NDP vote are their ideology, what they think about health care, about honest government and how dazzled or turned off they are by the main party leaders.
Calgarians' concern about health care has risen in recent months, up from 39 per cent in October 2022 and 25 per cent in March 2020.
While most people in the province's biggest city think the NDP are best positioned to run the province's health-care system, the UCP shows no signs of ceding the battle over this issue in the larger pre-election air war.
UCP's health-care hurdle
No doubt, the UCP's public health "guarantee" announcement in Sherwood Park on Tuesday was designed to beat back months of the New Democrat's pounding of Smith for her openness in 2021 to people paying for health services, including checkups with family doctors.
There's also no ambiguity about how important health care remains for Calgary voters.
Nearly half (45 per cent) of people in the city, according to the poll, picked health care as one of their top concerns. Only slightly more than one-third (35 per cent) believe the UCP will do a better job than the NDP handling a provincial health system plagued in recent years by long queues for surgeries and a shortage of doctors and nurses.
Longtime political watchers think Smith faces a real credibility challenge surrounding health care just weeks out from a provincial election.
Smith's pledge that no Albertan "will ever have to pay" for health care was clearly aimed at reassuring voters who doubt her commitment to universal health care.
"The trick here is that they have to trust her. They have to believe that when she says that something is a guarantee, that it's actually a guarantee," said Young.
Smith's attempt to shore up her flank on health wasn't helped, said Young, by the self-described "political suicide" comments of her party's Livingstone-Macleod UCP candidate.
Chelsae Petrovic came under fire the day before Smith's health pledge for a remark on a February podcast that people who have heart attacks "haven't taken care" of themselves — they're overweight or have diabetes — and needed to take greater personal responsibility.
LISTEN | CBC's Brooks DeCillia talks to pollster Janet Brown about the science behind the poll:
While Petrovic later conceded she could have "chosen better language," the controversy contaminated the UCP leader's attempt to unequivocally clear up her commitment to pay Albertans' hospital bills in full.
"She can say the things that voters want to hear, but they don't necessarily believe her," Young said. "I think that's going to be a real obstacle for her to overcome when we look at these Calgary voters."
Looking for honest government
Not only do Calgarians want a well run health-care system, but they also are looking for an honest government.
As the poll suggests, four in 10 Calgary voters say the NDP is best able to deliver on that measure. Only 28 per cent of Calgarians think the ruling United Conservative Party would be more honest in government.
Last week, Alberta's ethics commissioner launched an investigation into whether Smith interfered with the administration of justice tied to COVID-19 prosecutions.
Two days earlier, Smith offered a new explanation for why she talked on the phone with a controversial Calgary street pastor about his pending criminal case for allegedly breaking pandemic public health restrictions.
Legal scholars and political scientists have been critical of the call.
Concerns about Smith's performance in dealing with such issues could affect people's impression of her.
"I think that there's potentially a spillover effect from that to these bread-and-butter campaign issues where she's trying to meet voters where they are, but they don't necessarily believe what she has to say," said Young.
Half of Calgary voters, in fact, have a low impression of Smith.
Leadership
In contrast to Smith, only about one-third (30 per cent) of Calgarians score NDP leader Rachel Notley low. The former, single-term premier's favourability in the province's largest city has, in fact, grown from 30 per cent when she held Alberta's top job last decade to 45 per cent in this spring's poll.
Notably, the percentage of Calgarians who are highly impressed with Smith is also up, from 20 per cent last fall to 29 per cent.
"It's really clear that NDP supporters have a stronger affinity with Rachel Notley than UCP supporters have with Danielle Smith," Brown said.
"Rachel Notley is a fundamental reason why people are choosing to vote for the NDP, but UCP supporters are almost ignoring the leadership issue."
Political watchers expect the NDP to make it an issue, and keep hammering away at her on trustworthiness and health care in coming weeks.
"It can potentially help them to prevent Smith from making gains on an issue like health care because they can throw into question whether her commitment is real," said Young.
And the May campaign could really make a difference — in the margins, at least.
Campaigns matter (but not always)
The 2019 provincial election campaign, arguably, didn't matter. Some U.S. research, in fact, bleakly suggests that all the annoying campaign phone calls, door-knocking and advertising has no effect on who voters choose on election day.
Notably, a CBC News poll a year before the 2019 spring election that propelled Jason Kenney to the premier's chair predicted the UCP would crush Rachel Notley's NDP government. The nascent party cruised to victory on election day, capturing 55 per cent of the popular vote.
Structurally, the NDP faced tough re-election possibilities in 2019 as decades of political science research suggests Albertans blamed the incumbent government for the province's sluggish economy.
Calgarians believed Kenney's promise to get Alberta's economy cooking with oil and gas again, electing 23 UCP MLAs in the city.
Twenty-two points separated the UCP from the NDP on election day in 2019.
This year's race is tight. Only five points separate the UCP and NDP in Brown's poll, which she projects could give the NDP 18 of 26 city seats.
But a five-point lead makes for one tight race.
So the coming campaign is likely to see some tough battles, with the winner capturing their seat by only a few percentage points.
"There's not a lot of votes up for grabs right now," said Brown.
"But when an election's this close, you don't need too many votes. Every vote counts."
METHODOLOGY
CBC News's random survey of 1,000 of Calgarians was conducted using a hybrid method between March 23 and April 6 by Edmonton-based Trend Research under the direction of Janet Brown Opinion Research. The sample is representative of regional, age and gender factors. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For subsets, the margin of error is larger.
The survey used a hybrid methodology that involved contacting survey respondents by telephone and giving them the option of completing the survey at that time, at another more convenient time, or receiving an email link and completing the survey online. Trend Research contacted people using a random list of numbers, consisting of half landlines and half cellphone numbers. Telephone numbers were dialed up to five times at five different times of day before another telephone number was added to the sample.
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