From June 25 and 28, 2024, Abacus Data conducted a survey of 1,000 Albertans aged 18 and over exploring public opinion about provincial politics following Naheed Nenshi’s win as the next leader of the Alberta NDP on June 22.
In this report, we share results of our core political opinion questions which we have tracked over time, delve into public impressions of the provincial government under Danielle Smith’s leadership, examine the key issues currently impacting Albertans, and compare public sentiment of Danielle Smith and Naheed Nenshi.
UCP Holds a 14-point lead over the Alberta NDP
Currently, the UCP have a larger pool of accessible voters (62%) than the the Alberta NDP (48%), highlighting the UCP’s broad appeal to Albertans across the province. This gives the UCP more paths to victory and remains one of its strongest advantages for the Alberta NDP.
If a provincial election were held today, 54% of committed Alberta adults would vote UCP, while 40% would vote for the Alberta NDP, and 6% would choose another party.
Compared to our last survey in March 2024, the UCP’s support is down 1, while the NDP’s support remains unchanged. Since the 2023 provincial election, the NDP has seen a decline of 4-points, whereas the UCP has experienced a 1-point increase. Overall, Nenshi’s victory has not had a noticeable impact on voting intentions in the province.
Regionally, the UCP leads by 4 in Calgary (a smaller margin than we measured in March at 8-points) while the two parties are statistically tied in Edmonton. Outside the two largest cities, the UCP leads by 34-points. Since Nenshi’s victory, the NDP is slightly more popular in Calgary but it’s lead in Edmonton has been reduced from 11-points to 2-points over the UCP.
The UCP continues to hold a wide lead among men (24-points, up from 22 in March), while their lead among women has narrowed to 3 points (down from 7 in March). The UCP maintains a commanding 23-point lead among Albertans aged 60+, whereas the Alberta NDP now has a 5-point lead among Albertans aged 18-29 an improvement since March when we found the UCP ahead by 4.
When asked about their preferred premier, 56% of Albertans favour Danielle Smith, while 44% prefer Naheed Nenshi. Residents in Calgary and Edmonton are evenly split between the two while those outside the big cities prefer Smith to Nenshi by a 2 to 1 margin.
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Impressions of Danielle Smith’s Government
Since March, impressions of the provincial government led by Danielle Smith have improved notably. Today, 42% approve of the provincial government’s job performance (up 10 since March) while 39% disapprove. However, those who strongly disapprove (24%) is more than double those who strongly approve (11%).
In Calgary, the Smith government’s net approval rating is +3, up from -13 in March. In Edmonton, it stands at -12, an improvement from -20 in March. In the rest of the province, the approval rating has increased to +15 from +11 in March. These figures indicate that approval of Smith’s government has risen across the province since March of this year, although Edmonton still presents a net negative approval rating.
Mood of the Province + Top Issues Facing Alberta Today
Today, 49% of Albertan’s believe that the province is off on the wrong track (largely unchanged from March) while 35% believe the province is headed in the right direction. For comparison, nationally, 25% of Canadians think the province is headed in the right direction.
It is interesting that more Albertans approve of the provincial government’s performance than think the province is headed in the right direction. In fact, 17% of those who think the province is off on the wrong track approve of the provincial government. It is likely these people blame something else (think federal government or global events) for the direction of the province rather than the provincial government.
The cost of living is by far the most important issue for Albertans today. 3 in 4 rate it as one of their top 3 issues. Healthcare, housing, taxes, and the economy round out the top 5.
Interestingly, despite Calgary’s state of emergency related to a major watermain break, only 8% of Albertans rate “infrastructure in Alberta’s cities” as a top issue and Calgarians are no more likely to rate it as a top issue than those in other parts of the province.
Albertans were asked which party leader – Danielle Smith or Naheed Nenshi – they trust most to deal with each issue.
Danielle Smith has a wide lead on who Albertans trust most to defend Alberta against the federal government (+33), protecting the rights of gun owners (+34), managing the economy (+17), keeping taxes low (+11), business attraction (+18), the cost of living (+7), and infrastructure (+7).
Naheed Nenshi leads on climate change (+11), protecting the environment (+11), wealth inequality (+8), healthcare (+10) and education (+7).
Smith and Nenshi are tied on education (38% each).
Impressions of Party Leaders
To assess how well people know Naheed Nenshi as he takes over the leadership of the Alberta NDP from Rachel Notley, we asked people to rate their knowledge of both Smith and Nenshi.
Not surprisingly, Danielle Smith is better known than Naheed Nenshi. When we combine those who say they know the leaders pretty or very well, Smith’s familiarity score is 73% while Nenshi’s is 53%. Despite being Calgary’s Mayor for more than decade, many Albertans don’t know much about Nenshi and that’s very clear when we look at the region breakouts.
In Calgary, 73% say they know Nenshi at least pretty well compared with only 44% in the rest of the province.
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Both political party leaders have fairly good personal images (at least compared to political leaders federally or in other provinces. Danielle Smith has a net favourable impression of +2 with 41% having a positive view of her and 39% having a negative view.
In comparison, Naheed Nenshi’s net favourable is even with 32% having a positive view and 32% having a negative one.
Premier Smith’s net favourability is highest in communities outside Calgary and Edmonton (+11), among those aged 45-59 (+20), and those aged 60 and older (+12). Conversely, Naheed Nenshi’s net favourability is greatest in Calgary (+21) and Edmonton (+5), as well as among those aged 18-29 (+7). Premier Smith garners the highest favourability among older residents and rural communities outside Calgary and Edmonton, while Naheed Nenshi’s strongest support comes from younger adults and urban areas like Calgary and Edmonton.
Respondents were also asked to rate Danielle Smith and Naheed Nenshi on various leadership qualities. Smith was more likely to be seen as a strong leader (53%) and someone who stands up for Albertans (50%) compared to Nenshi.
In contrast, Nenshi was more likely to be viewed as intelligent (57%) and kind and compassionate (48%) compared to Smith. Additionally, Nenshi was perceived as someone motivated by genuine concern for their community (42%) and understanding of the challenges faced by Albertans (40%). These findings indicate that Albertans perceive Danielle Smith as a strong leader, while they see Nenshi as empathetic and in touch with the personal aspects of politics.
However, when we focus on only those who know each leader at least “pretty well”, we find Nenshi holding a considerable advantage over Smith. This suggests that as people get to know Nenshi better across the province, he has the potential to shift impressions of the party and maybe increase the number of Albertans willing to consider voting NDP.
In other words, there’s a chance that the more Albertans get to know Nenshi, the more they will like him.
NDP Divorce? Should the AB NDP split from the federal party?
After being elected as the new leader of the Alberta NDP, Naheed Nenshi indicated his intention to ask party members about splitting from the federal party, a key issue in his campaign.
When asked, 49% of Albertans support the Alberta NDP severing ties with the federal party, while 21% oppose it. This decision is strongly supported by accessible Alberta NDP voters (51%), Alberta NDP supporters (49%), and even federal NDP supporters (43%). This shows a significant portion of Albertans favor more autonomy for the provincial party.
The Upshot
Naheed Nenshi’s landslide victory for the Alberta NDP leadership has not had a major impact on public opinion in Alberta but it has shifted two aspects of political opinion: the Alberta NDP is more competitive in Calgary but has less of a dominant lead in Edmonton.
Nenshi takes over the Alberta NDP at a time when Danielle Smith and her government are relatively popular (at least compared to other incumbent governments in Canada). More people have a positive view of Premier Smith than a negative one. The UCP has a big advantage on several of the top issues including the cost of living, the economy, and taxes and is tied with the NDP on housing. Healthcare remains a vulnerability for the UCP and an opportunity for Nenshi and the NDP.
Perhaps more concerning for Nenshi is the substantially larger pool of accessible voters available to the UCP than the NDP. The UCP’s advantage outside of two largest cities remains a big hurdle for a future NDP government and changing the public’s perception of the NDP is going to be an important step in fixing that. There’s broad support for splitting the provincial NDP from the federal party, so that could be a first step in that process.
But this poll also confirms that Nenshi could be threat to the UCP. Those who know Nenshi like him which is probably why the UCP has already started trying to define him to the close to half of Albertans who don’t know the former Calgary mayor all that well.
It’s still too early to determine Naheed Nenshi’s influence on Albertan politics, but early signs indicate he holds promise as a worthy challenger to Danielle Smith and the UCP. How effectively he connects on key issues for Albertans, is able to shift perceptions about the party itself, and increases his visibility across the province will be pivotal in shaping voter opinions moving forward.
Methodology
The survey was conducted with 1,000 Canadian adults from June 25 to 28, 2024. A random sample of panelists were invited to complete the survey from a set of partner panels based on the Lucid exchange platform. These partners are typically double opt-in survey panels, blended to manage out potential skews in the data from a single source.
The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 3.31%, 19 times out of 20.
The data were weighted according to census data to ensure that the sample matched Canada’s population according to age, gender, educational attainment, and region.
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VIENNA (AP) — Austria’s far-right Freedom Party could win a national election for the first time on Sunday, tapping into voters’ anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns following recent gains for the hard right elsewhere in Europe.
Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to become Austria’s new chancellor. He has used the term “Volkskanzler,” or chancellor of the people, which was used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Kickl has rejected the comparison.
But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a majority in the lower house of parliament.
And a win isn’t certain, with recent polls pointing to a close race. They have put support for the Freedom Party at 27%, with the conservative Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Karl Nehammer on 25% and the center-left Social Democrats on 21%.
More than 6.3 million people age 16 and over are eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, a European Union member that has a policy of military neutrality.
Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.
In 2019, its support slumped to 16.2% after a scandal brought down a government in which it was the junior coalition partner. Then-vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned following the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.
The far right has tapped into voter frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic. It also been able to build on worries about migration.
In its election program, the Freedom Party calls for “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” and for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an “emergency law.”
Gernot Bauer, a journalist with Austrian magazine Profil who recently co-published an investigative biography of the far-right leader, said that under Kickl’s leadership, the Freedom Party has moved “even further to the right,” as Kickl refuses to explicitly distance the party from the Identitarian Movement, a pan-European nationalist and far-right group.
Bauer describes Kickl’s rhetoric as “aggressive” and says some of his language is deliberately provocative.
The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany.
The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, has positioned himself as the polar opposite to Kickl. Andreas Babler has ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”
While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party, which currently leads a coalition government with the environmentalist Greens as junior partners, has declined since 2019.
During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a tough line on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that will guarantee stability amid multiple crises.
But it is precisely these crises, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting rising energy prices, that have cost the conservatives support, said Peter Filzmaier, one of Austria’s leading political scientists.
Under their leadership, Austria has experienced high inflation averaging 4.2% over the past 12 months, surpassing the EU average.
The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 by becoming the first European country to introduce a coronavirus vaccine mandate, which was scrapped a few months later without ever being put into effect. And Nehammer is the third chancellor since the last election, taking office in 2021 after predecessor Sebastian Kurz — the winner in 2019 — quit politics amid a corruption investigation.
But the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries in Central Europe brought back the topic of the environment into the election debate and helped Nehammer slightly narrow the gap with the Freedom Party by presenting himself as a “crisis manager,” Filzmaier said.
Nehammer said in a video Thursday that “this is about whether we continue together on this proven path of stability or leave the country to the radicals, who make a lot of promises and don’t keep them.”
The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government.
Nehammer has repeatedly excluded joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but hasn’t ruled out a coalition with the Freedom Party in and of itself, which would imply Kickl renouncing a position in government.
The likelihood of Kickl agreeing to such a deal if he wins the election is very low, Filzmaier said.
But should the People’s Party finish first, then a coalition between the People’s Party and the Freedom Party could happen, Filzmaier said. The most probable alternative would be a three-way alliance between the People’s Party, the Social Democrats and most likely the liberal Neos.
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Associated Press videojournalist Philipp Jenne contributed to this report.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — As Donald Trump railed against immigrants Saturday afternoon in the Rust Belt, his supporters in the Deep South had turned his earlier broadsides into a rallying cry over a college football game as they prepared for the former president’s visit later in the evening.
“You gotta get these people back where they came from,” Trump said in Wisconsin, as the Republican presidential nominee again focused on Springfield, Ohio, which has been roiled by false claims he amplified that Haitian immigrants are stealing and “eating the dogs … eating the cats” from neighbors’ homes.
“You have no choice,” Trump continued. “You’re going to lose your culture. You’re going to lose your country.”
Many University of Alabama fans, anticipating Trump’s visit to their campus for a showdown between the No. 4 Crimson Tide and No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs, sported stickers and buttons that read: “They’re eating the Dawgs!” They broke out in random chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” throughout the day, a preview of the rousing welcome he received early in the second quarter as he sat in a 40-yard-line suite hosted by a wealthy member of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Trump’s brand of populist nationalism leans heavily on his dark rendering of America as a failing nation abused by elites and overrun by Black and brown immigrants. But his supporters, especially white cultural conservatives, hear in that rhetoric an optimistic patriotism encapsulated by the slogan on his movement’s ubiquitous red hats: “Make America Great Again.”
That was the assessment by Shane Walsh, a 52-year-old businessman from Austin, Texas. Walsh and his family decorated their tent on the university quadrangle with a Trump 2024 flag and professionally made sign depicting the newly popular message forecasting the Alabama football team “eating the Dawgs.”
For Walsh, the sign was not about immigration or the particulars of Trump’s showmanship, exaggerations and falsehoods.
“I don’t necessarily like him as a person,” Walsh said. “But I think Washington is broken, and it’s both parties’ faults — and Trump is the kind of guy who will stand up. He’s a lot of things, but weak isn’t one of them. He’s an optimistic guy — he just makes you believe that if he’s in charge, we’re going to be all right.”
The idea for the sign, he said, grew out of a meme he showed his wife. “I thought it was funny,” he said.
Katie Yates, a 47-year-old from Hoover, Alabama, had the same experience with her life-sized cutout of the former president. She was stopped repeatedly on her way to her family’s usual tent. Trump’s likeness was set to join Elvis, “who is always an Alabama fan at our tailgate,” Yates said.
“I’m such a Trump fan,” she said, adding that she could not understand how every American was not.
Yates offered nothing disparaging about Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, instead simply lamenting that she could not stay for the game and see Trump be recognized by the stadium public address system and shown pumping his fist on large video screens in the four corners of Bryant-Denny Stadium.
That moment came with 12:24 left in the second quarter, shortly after Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe ran up the right sideline, on Trump’s side of the field, to give the Crimson Tide an eye-popping 28-0 lead over the Vegas-favored Bulldogs.
Trump did not react to Milroe’s scamper, perhaps recognizing that Georgia, not reliably Republican Alabama, is a key battleground in his contest against Harris. But when “the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump” was introduced to the capacity crowd of more than 100,000 fans — all but a few thousand wearing crimson — Trump smiled broadly and pumped his fist, like he had done on stage in July after the bullet of a would-be assassin grazed his ear and bloodied his face.
The crowd roared its approval, raising cell phone cameras and their crimson-and-white pompoms toward Trump’s suite, where he stood behind the ballistic glass that has become a feature after two assassination attempts. A smattering of boos and a few extended middle fingers broke Trumpian decorum, but they yielded to more chants of: “USA! USA! USA!”
Indeed, not everyone on campus was thrilled.
“There is, I think, a silent majority among the students that are not with Trump,” argued Braden Vick, president of Alabama’s College Democrats chapter. Vick pointed to recent elections when Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden in 2020, vastly outperformed their statewide totals in precincts around the campus.
“We have this great atmosphere for a top-five game between these two teams, with playoff and championship implications,” Vick said, “and it’s just a shame that Donald Trump has to try to ruin it with his selfishness.”
Trump came as the guest of Alabama businessman Ric Mayers Jr., a member of Mar-a-Lago. Mayers said in an interview before the game that he invited Trump so that he could enjoy a warm welcome. And, as Mayers noted, Trump is a longtime sports fan. He tried to buy an NFL team in the 1980s and helped launch a competing league instead. And he attended several college games as president, including an Alabama-Georgia national championship game.
Mayers also invited Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville. Britt, a former student government president at Alabama, delivered the GOP response to Biden’s last State of the Union address, drawing rebukes after using a disproven story of human trafficking to echo Trump’s warnings about migrants. Tuberville, a former head football coach at Auburn University, Alabama’s archrival, is a staunch Trump supporter.
Joining the politicians in the suite were musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. Herschel Walker, a Georgia football icon and failed Senate nominee in 2022, traveled in Trump’s motorcade to the game.
Fencing surrounded parts of the stadium, with scores of metal detectors and tents forming a security perimeter beyond the usual footprint. Sisters of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority showed their security wristbands before being allowed to their sorority house directly adjacent to the stadium. Bomb-sniffing dogs stopped catering trucks carrying food. Hundreds of TSA agents spread out to do a potentially unpopular job: imposing airport-level screening for each ticket-holder.
But what seemed to matter most was a friendly home crowd’s opportunity to cheer for Trump the same way they cheered the Crimson Tide, unburdened by anything he said in Wisconsin or anywhere else as he makes an increasingly dark closing argument.
“College football fans can get emotional and kooky about their team,” Shane Walsh said. “And so can Trump supporters.”
They didn’t even mind that Trump’s tie was not crimson. It was Georgia red.
VICTORIA – Elections BC says the New Democrats and Conservatives have nominated full slates of candidates for the upcoming Oct. 19 provincial election.
Elections BC says in a statement the two main parties will field candidates for each of the province’s 93 ridings, while the Green Party nominated 69 candidates.
Nominations closed Saturday afternoon with 323 total candidates, of which 269 represent seven different political parties and 54 who are contesting the election as Independents or unaffiliated candidates.
Elections BC says the official list includes five Freedom Party of B.C. hopefuls, four Libertarians, three representing the Communist Party of B.C. and two candidates from the Christian Heritage Party of B.C.
There are no BC United candidates.
BC United officials said earlier they might run some candidates in the election to preserve the party entity for the future after Leader Kevin Falcon announced the suspension of BC United’s election campaign in late August to prevent a centre-right vote split.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.
