David Staples: Smith and UCP likely won’t crash in rural Alberta

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Are Daniel Smith and her United Conservative Party plummeting in popularity in rural Alberta? Outside of Calgary, the United Conservatives have a lead of 44%, compared to Rachel Notley’s NDP of 36%.

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In 2019, the UCP won the same 67% of the votes, while the NDP had just 21%.

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what to do with this? Not much, but at least not yet.

Perhaps the findings presage what we’ll see in Tuesday’s Brooks-Medicine Hat by-election. Perhaps Daniel Smith will fall off the cliff with that vote. But I doubt it.

I think she will win easily.

I base this on three things. The first is recent history. You may remember a similar vibration that could have tripped the UCP last March before Alberta’s final provincial by-election at Fort McMurray-Lakkla his Bish. Instead of crashing, his UCP candidate Brian Jean won his 64% of the votes, while the NDP won just his 19% of the votes. Yes, the UCP popular vote fell him 3% from his 2019 election, but the NDP vote fell his 6%, with Alberta’s independent candidate winning his 11% of the vote. .

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This independence vote is the second reason I suspect that support for UCP will collapse in rural Alberta. With a big focus on Alberta standing up to Ottawa, Smith is reaching out to sovereignty-loving voters, reaching 13% at the Brooks Medicine Hat in 2019.

A third reason I suspect Smith will do well is that she continues her recent shift in focus, moving away from the plight of the unvaccinated, rebuilding the economy, and helping Alberta’s families. because you are in favor of helping

Regarding Alberta’s budget surplus, Mr. Smith currently offers a 4X25% solution, with 25% of the surplus being split between four different priorities (debt service, investment in the Heritage Trust Fund, infrastructure spending, and inflation mitigation). ) are evenly distributed.

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Smith also continues to denounce a lightning fast carbon tax backed by Ottawa’s Singh NDP and Trudeau’s liberals. Smith has repeatedly argued that Notley’s NDP is in favor of this inflationary policy.

At an election forum this week, Smith said, “Keep in mind you’re holding on to Justin Trudeau as the NDP imposes a 300% carbon tax hike on the public.” 100% comes from natural gas and nearly 100% of home heating comes from natural gas, it will overwhelm those on the front lines who are witnessing those increases.”

Gwendoline Dirk, a retired English teacher and NDP candidate, effectively fought back on the forums on two fronts. First, she attacked some of Smith’s past views as conspiracy theories, emphasizing that her UCP would wreak havoc on the healthcare system.

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Dirk said it was a conspiracy theory that Notley’s NDP was aligned with Ottawa’s federal NDP and liberals. “His NDP in Alberta is his 100% own political party. I heard many conspiracy theories such as hydroxychloroquine actually cured COVID. The affected group is the unvaccinated people.”

Many of Smith’s past comments certainly annoyed her, some of them unsurprisingly, but until Notley spoke out strongly against a 300% increase in the carbon tax, she and Sinn/Trudeau’s The link between energy policy becomes a rope at risk of strangling her party’s campaign in rural Alberta.

This is especially true, as Smith and UCP have finally come up with an interesting emissions policy of exporting low-emission LNG to countries that still burn wood, coal and dung (Alberta in return carbon credit). Industry and carbon dioxide capture and storage, and the use of small modular reactors to reduce Alberta oil sands emissions, like Singh’s anti-nuclear NDP in Ottawa, Notley’s NDP still opposes It’s a sharp effort.

When it comes to healthcare, Smith has settled with both nurses and doctors. She always admires these two groups of hers.

As the spring election approaches, we’ll know what Smith did with AHS and whether it was a fiasco or some kind of victory.

But first, we’ll see if Smith can get through this by-election ballot.

If the UCP actually fell 23% outside of our big cities, Smith would win about 40% of the popular vote, down from the 61% UCP won in the same election in 2019.

But after seeing this, I agree.