Daniel Smith’s by-election victory was less decisive than expected, expert says

Seven years after leaving Parliament, Alberta’s Prime Minister Daniel Smith regained his seat.

Smith won the seat by defeating four opponents in Tuesday’s by-election in the Brooks Medicine Hat constituency.

It was a result that political scientists across the state weren’t surprised to hear.

“I think we certainly expected Daniel Smith to win the seat,” said University of Lethbridge political scientist Trevor Harrison. , would have put UCP in considerable trouble.”

But her victory was not as big as some party members had hoped, with just under 55% of the vote as of 10:30 pm Tuesday.

“Certainly I think UCP and Daniel Smith himself are breathing a sigh of relief. A win is a win. But that’s very low,” Harrison said. “I’m happy to win the election because this was a by-election in a rural area of ​​Alberta, the heart of his UCP support, but perhaps Daniel Smith said he’s not selling as well as UCP hopes. Sending a message? It’s something for the party itself to really ponder for some time to come.”

Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams agrees.

“This is far from the decisive victory she hoped for, perhaps expected,” Williams said.

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“She ran with this riding. She wanted a decisive win, but it didn’t.”

But Harrison said there could be several reasons why her win was smaller than expected.

“Some of the other parties may have been particularly willing to vote against Daniel Smith,” Harrison said. “So that may explain some of the differences in the percentages of the various candidates.”

Winning her seat in the legislature is something that political science professors agree Smith needed to advance her political career.

“It would have been very difficult to rule as prime minister without being in parliament,” Harrison said. , perhaps she can do those things better when she’s in Congress.”

“Okay, it’s a win. And she’s going to win. And she’ll try to turn that into legislative support and the ability to actually move her agenda.”

Preliminary polls show fewer eligible voters to vote for the Brooks-Medicine Hat compared to the last general election.

The Alberta election said 4,231 out of 34,060 voters had voted in advance polls this year. This equates to approximately 12.4% of eligible voters.

Harrison said low voter turnout in by-elections was nothing new, but added he was surprised Smith’s position had not boosted voter turnout in this year’s polls.

“Generally, by-elections don’t get that many people elected. Sometimes only 35 to 40 percent get elected,” Harrison said. “But I’m not sure what you mean by voter indifference in this case, given that the prime minister is running, the votes are actually expected to be quite high.”

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