Voters think Alberta NDP lacks staying power: poll

Alberta voters don’t think much of the NDP’s chances in the next provincial election, even though the prospect of uniting the province’s conservatives into a single party gets mixed reviews, according to a new poll.

A poll by Insights West provided to Postmedia shows 67 per cent of respondents — including just over half of those who voted NDP last year — believe Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP government will be defeated in the 2019 provincial election.

“There is a sense that this was a one- time blip,” said Insights West vice- president Mario Canseco on Thursday.

The NDP pulled off a shocking upset of the four- decade Progressive Conservative dynasty in the 2015 provincial election, which was called by then- Premier Jim Prentice a year ahead of schedule.

Since taking office, the NDP has been slammed by cellar- dwelling oil prices that have pushed the economy into recession.

Canseco said the economic circumstances are likely hurting Notley’s government but the poll also reveals a potential political disadvantage for the NDP.

It shows 20 per cent of Albertans define their political leanings as farleft, left, or centre- left while 29 per cent quantify themselves as farright, right, or centre- right. The poll has 23 per cent of Albertans placing themselves at the political centre.

The poll of 602 adult Albertans online was conducted between March 9 to 12. It has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

The survey comes in the midst of continued talk about uniting the political right in Alberta and it also asked Albertans to rate a number of options for the province’s conservative parties.

It shows 53 per cent of respondents supported keeping the Wildrose and the Progressive Conservatives as separate entities, while 36 per cent like the idea of the two parties coming together to form a new party with a new name.

The unite- the- right option gets a better reception among supporters of the two conservative parties however, with 57 per cent of Wildrose’s 2015 voters backing the idea of a new consolidated party. Among PC voters, 46 per cent support the idea of a single united party.

Canseco said the poll isn’t bad for those who want to unite- the- right.

“There are a lot of people who are undecided on this and in a way it makes sense because it’s too early to tell what the ramifications would be, who the leader would be, how the leader would be elected. We’re still in the early stages,” he said.

“It would suggest that if you do this properly, have the right framework, you can make it work and there might be a lot of people who are actually happy with the outcome.”