High Expectations and Vote Splitting

In 2013 there was an election in British Columbia. The BC NDP got 39.7% of the vote, resulting in a very unexpected crushing defeat.

In 2015 there was an election in Alberta. The Alberta NDP got 40.6% of the vote, resulting in a very unexpected resounding victory.

The narrative that has emerged from the Alberta election is that of a province taking a hard turn to the left, turning its back on the past 80 years of conservative rule. There is a little truth to this… the Alberta NDP didn’t get nearly as many votes the last time around, coming in at 9.8%. So their popular support has grown tremendously.

But that’s not the whole story. It’s worth considering why the 40.6% brought victory when 39.7% fell so far short in BC. The truth is, more Albertans voted conservative, 52%. They just didn’t do it in an effective way. 27.8% voted for the Progressive Conservatives, and 24.2% voted for Wildrose - the Regressive Conservatives. Because of the terrible gerrymandering, Wildrose walked away with twice as many seats as the PCs, but neither was enough to make a big impact on their own.

There’s a lesson here, about strategy, and about complacency. Alberta was safe for the conservatives, so they didn’t need to coalesce around either party. It was not safe for the left, so the NDP and the Greens made moves to avoid splitting the vote.

The Alberta victory is very similar to the Federal situation in the 1990s. The Progressive Conservatives had a crushing defeat, in large part due to the regressive conservatives (variously called Reform, Canadian Alliance, and CRAP) splitting the right-wing vote.

It will be months before I can guess what is likely to happen in the Federal election this fall. It’s tougher than usual because the party positions are not so neatly binary… the Liberals are there in the middle and it’s hard to tell which way they’ll fall. It will be interesting to see whether the Liberals do a better job of splitting the left wing vote or splitting the right wing vote.

As for Alberta, well, it will be far more than a few months before I can guess how that will shake out. Perhaps the right-wing unites in time for the next election. Perhaps the process drags out for several. For now though, Albertans might be willing to give the NDP a chance.