Mayor Gondek hasn't decided if she'll run again. Others won't wait for her

The third-place finisher in Calgary's last mayoral election stood in front of a few dozen well-wishers and some media cameras this week, with the Saddledome and downtown as his scenic backdrop.

"Hi, my name's Jeff Davison," he said. "And I'm asking you to make me your next mayor of Calgary."

The former one-term councillor has 373 more days to keep repeating his name and asking that of Calgarians. The civic election isn't until Oct. 20, 2025.

Davison likely won't be the only one declaring his name and mayoral ambitions for a full year or more. Another serious contender has begun organizing and appears set to launch this month, and two current councillors and another past one are also actively considering bids.

All this maneuvering and open campaigning, and none of them know for sure whether current Mayor Jyoti Gondek will declare that she'll seek re-election.

And for a couple generations in Calgary, that's been the sort of declaration that other prominent figures with mayoral ambitions wait for.

One and done?

It's not just that no sitting mayor has lost an election since 1980, when Ralph Klein swiped the job from Ross Alger. Every time the city's chief magistrate has sought a second term since then — from Klein to Naheed Nenshi last decade — they've won with at least 73 per cent of the vote.

But the public doesn't seem anywhere near as excited about four more years with Gondek. 

After a long, controversy-laden summer of woes with water infrastructure and the Green Line project, a September poll indicated that only 18 per cent of Calgarians believe she should be re-elected, and surveys throughout her term have shown that her approval is under water.

So others feel comfortable dipping their toes or splashing right into the race to replace Mayor Gondek, whether or not she's running again.

In addition to Davison, Jeromy Farkas, the 2021 election's runner-up, has already said publicly that he's considering another bid. Like others, he senses that Calgarians hunger for change, not a second-term chance for the incumbent mayor (or many councillors, for that matter).

"Calgarians have been saying that city hall has been rudderless and that's from both progressive and conservative circles," Farkas told CBC News in an interview.

He's positioning himself as a more moderate candidate than the "cartoon caricature of a conservative" he says Calgarians saw last time.

"The city has grown up. I have grown up," he said.

Two sitting councillors weighing mayoral runs have already shown themselves as regularly opposed to Gondek's priorities. Sonya Sharp and Dan McLean have tried unsuccessfully voting down the Green Line LRT phase revisions, property tax increases and rezoning to allow duplexes and fourplexes in all neighbourhoods.

"I always like to challenge myself to do more," Sharp said in an interview.

"It's in the back of my mind," McLean said. "I didn't get into politics just to sit in the backbenches for a long time."

Brian Thiessen, a lawyer and former Calgary Police Commission chair, has quietly been preparing a run. An August cocktail party, held in his honour at the home of former councillor Bev Longstaff, touted him as a mayoral candidate.

About 50 people showed up, Longstaff said.

Thiessen, a former Alberta Party president and top fundraiser for Nenshi's mayoral campaign, is chair of the group Calgary Act Now. It's preparing to field a progressive-leaning slate or party of municipal candidates next year, under new legislation that Premier Danielle Smith's government has enacted, and a key Act Now organizer is Stephen Carter, the strategist behind both Gondek's and Nenshi's mayoral victories.

The group has sent an invitation to its mailing list — which was seen by CBC News — for an Oct. 24 event, a "sneak peek into the exciting year ahead as we envision Calgary's journey to Election Day 2025."

Thiessen could not be reached for comment.

Despite the advent of political parties for the coming election, none of the would-be contenders aside from Thiessen are aligning themselves with any faction. Sharp, McLean and others have thus far steered clear of the conservative-aligned A Better Calgary party, which has been organizing in each ward and has planned a "founding convention" at a community hall next weekend.

The provincial government hasn't yet released regulations that specify how the new legislation for a civic party system and its fundraising will operate. Sharp said those details could help shape the decisions of many challengers or incumbents, including her.

Council colleague McLean said another factor will be how crowded the field is on its conservative flank. Writing in the Calgary Herald, columnist Chris Nelson suggested last week that a jumble of candidates could open up a path for an unpopular Gondek to squeak out a victory.

"I'm leery of the vote split, but we'll see how things unfold," McLean said. "There's still a fair amount of time."

More or less time than normal? The campaign clock's already begun ticking for Davison, and perhaps will soon for Thiessen.

Sharp told CBC News she'll declare her intentions next year — possibly because a sitting councillor might not want everything she does at every meeting to be viewed through the prism of her ambitions for higher office.

Gondek, who hasn't publicly given a timeline for her run-or-not announcement, faces similar considerations. Saying this month that she'll leave after a single term could make others treat her as a lame-duck leader for an entire year.

The mayor has been public about her uncertainty about seeking a second term, even if that was a foregone conclusion for her predecessors.

"And yes, there will be unfinished business, but the times are not what they were," she told the Calgary Sun in March. "You need to make sure you're the right leader for the times you're in."

Sitting councillors haven't said yea or nay yet either, including the many rookies and the ward veterans like Gian-Carlo Carra and Peter Demong.

The early birds

But the launches are occurring far earlier than Longstaff can recall.

When she ran for mayor to replace Al Duerr in the October 2001 election, she didn't announce her candidacy until June of that year. Duerr had waited until that April to say he wasn't running, and the contest's eventual winner, Dave Bronconnier, waited until late July to launch.

That gave him three months of campaigning, compared to the 12-month run that Davison has signed up for.

For the last election, Nenshi announced in April 2021 that he wasn't going to run again, but most insiders expected that; both Farkas and Gondek had already announced their bids, while Davison waited to launch in May of the election year.

The public's dissatisfaction with city hall's status quo has fuelled appetites to launch or prepare early, Longstaff said.

"I think it plays into everything. It's not just Jyoti, it's the whole council," she said.

"Everyone I run into says we need a reset."