Smith's premiership brightens NDP electoral fortunes: poll

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Albertans are taking a dim view of Danielle Smith’s rise to the premier’s chair, with the NDP enjoying a bump in the polls, suggests a new survey.

The online Leger Marketing poll of 1,000 Albertans shows they prefer NDP Leader Rachel Notley to Smith by a wide margin of 36 per cent to 22 per cent, with the Opposition party leading the UCP by 44 per cent to 42 per cent among decided voters — the latter figure a swing of five points since Sept. 22, before the ruling party’s leadership race concluded.

And the NDP is leading in what’s believed will be the decisive battleground of Calgary, by 44 per cent to 41 per cent — an advantage that in Edmonton widens to 15 points.

Fewer than 30 per cent of respondents believe Smith will engineer positive change, with negative numbers eclipsing the positive in half a dozen categories.

The poll was conducted Oct. 7 to 10, just after Smith won the leadership and before she made contentious remarks saying unvaccinated Canadians suffered worse discrimination than anyone else she’s seen in her 51 years, and about 7½ months before Albertans head to the polls next May.

On Sept. 8, four of Smith’s leadership rivals — Brian Jean, Rajan Sawhney, Travis Toews and Leela Aheer — held a joint Calgary news conference predicting a Smith-led UCP would lead to an NDP victory, and that her Alberta Sovereignty Act would damage the economy.

That act was originally touted as allowing Alberta to ignore federal decisions and court rulings against the province’s interests, though earlier this week Smith said Alberta would abide by Supreme Court decisions.

The Leger poll is consistent with several other recent surveys showing Smith faces an uphill fight among voters, and Notley’s 14-point lead over Smith as preferred Alberta premier should be troubling to the UCP, said Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams.

“That’s a very significant gap and difficult to recover from, though not impossible,” said Williams.

Smith, she said, seems to sense the same challenges as the poll suggests in Calgary, given she opted not to seek a seat in the legislature by running in the open Calgary-Elbow riding, currently held by the UCP.

“There was a lot more room to appeal to a wider range of voters with the other leadership candidates, and that’s there in Calgary,” said Williams.

The poll shows 39 per cent of respondents don’t believe Smith can hold her party together, while 20 per cent have confidence she can — results that are likely well-founded given the UCP’s fractious history and the premier’s narrow leadership race win, said Williams.

One urban UCP MLA said the poll results aren’t surprising given they come just after a heated leadership race whose negativity has rubbed off on the general public.

“You have to take it with a bit of a grain of salt,” said the MLA, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“There are raw nerves there and people need to hear what the Sovereignty Act really means.”

Much of the party’s fortunes rest on Smith’s leadership style following that of Jason Kenney, who was perceived by many — including some in the party — as being autocratic, said the MLA.

“A fresh rebrand of the UCP is possible,” said the lawmaker, adding party unity is crucial and that none of its MLAs have indicated an intention to bolt.

In the week since Smith’s ascension to the party’s leadership, a more collaborative approach seems to have emerged, said the MLA.

But the party’s chances of winning over Edmonton are moribund, as the poll suggests, and the region surrounding the capital now dominated by the UCP is “in question,” said the politician.

In Calgary, UCP candidates will have to work harder to keep their seats or win others than they did in 2019, said the MLA.

“We have to earn that trust back,” said the lawmaker.

The public reaction to Smith’s premiership is unusual, said Ian Large, executive vice-president of Leger Marketing.

“When there’s a leader elected, you normally get a bump in the polls and we’re not seeing that here,” he said.

But he said Notley’s personal popularity has always been relatively high and the poll’s results don’t stray too far from that, said Large.

And the poll’s numbers, he said, can also be seen as a “glass half full” by the UCP given the high level of undecideds on some of the questions.

“There’s a large number of people (25 per cent) who are still saying ‘we don’t know who’ll make the best premier,’ ” said Large.

“Albertans are probably waiting to see who Danielle Smith is.”

There’s no dramatic sign within the survey of a “doomsday” collapse of UCP support, he added.

With Calgary possibly becoming more amenable to the NDP and with Edmonton solidly with Notley’s party, the rural-urban split is becoming more pronounced, he said.

That makes it all the more vital for Smith to hold onto that support, Large said, while Williams suggested there’s already concerns within the party that Smith won’t live up to hard-line promises, such as with the Sovereignty Act.

“How big is the base and how loyal is the base — it is big enough to make it work for her?” Large said.

“If she can’t hold on to that, she’s done.”

Leger says that as a non-random survey, no margin of error is reported, but if it was collected through a random sample, that margin of error would be plus or minus 3.1 per cent 19 times out of 20.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn