If small-town Alberta is wary of Danielle Smith, nothing is a given any more

EDITOR'S NOTE: CBC News and The Road Ahead commissioned this public opinion research in mid-October, starting six days after Danielle Smith won the leadership of the United Conservative Party.

As with all polls, this one is a snapshot in time. 

This analysis is one in a series of articles to come out of this research. More stories will follow.

The main reason that Alberta election followers have triple-underlined "Battleground Calgary" is that the other two main hunks of the political map seemed to have been spoken for.

Rachel Notley's NDP had all but sewn up Fortress Edmonton, while the United Conservative Party held a long-term lease on the rest of Alberta — Otherland, let's call it, because Canmore, Fort McMurray and 100,000-person cities Lethbridge and Red Deer can't sensibly be lumped into "rural" Alberta.

But what if there is no Fortress Otherland for Premier Danielle Smith's new party? That's the alarming signal from the latest survey by Alberta polling maven Janet Brown for CBC News, one that shows the NDP ahead by nine percentage points overall.

Outside the major cities, UCP leads the NDP by 44 per cent to 36.

Sure, a lead is a lead, but that's not how a Jason Kenney-led party won all but three seats in Otherland. In 2019's election, UCP won 67 per cent of Otherland votes and NDP got 21 per cent.

A 46-percentage-point margin shrinking to eight points will turn conservative heads from Peace River to Medicine Hat — which are, let's note, two districts that Notley's side won in 2015, when the NDP also won government.

Put it a different way: Brown's numbers would make Otherland as much of a battleground as Calgary, where the NDP enjoy a six-point lead (46 per cent to UCP's 40).

Based on Brown's projections, this poll tips the ridings in Banff, Lethbridge and Red Deer into the NDP's orange column, in addition to most of Calgary. Outside of Edmonton — the NDP retain a fortressy-like 26-point lead in the capital city — several bedroom-community ridings would also leave the UCP fold.

It may be unfair to draw a straight line between Thursday's poll reporting and UCP member Brad Rutherford's announcement that evening that he won't seek a second term as Leduc–Beaumont MLA. But perhaps a squiggly line? It's no fun, the spectre of having to scrape by for a seat you won by 30 percentage points last time.

Know what is fun? Team-building paintball afternoons, like the one Smith organized for her UCP caucus days after becoming premier. But team cohesion is trickier when so few MLAs feel politically secure under the new leader's banner, and the word from Smith's teammates after this poll came out was … gulp.

A deeper dive into the survey data suggests that Otherland isn't buying what Smith is selling much more than urban Albertans are.