This is where the Albertans deciding Jason Kenney's future live (think small)

The fate of Premier Jason Kenney rests in the hands of fewer than 1.5 per cent of Albertans — those with valid United Conservative Party memberships. But even within that small, politically-active subset of the population, there's an outsized say in some corners of the province. 

Emphasis on corners, and edges and the less densely-packed middle.

To maintain his post as leader of a province dominated by its two million-person cities, Kenney must soak up healthy shares of leadership review votes in places like Cardston in Alberta's deep south, Rimbey in the centre and way up in Fort McMurray. A resident of the Cardston–Siksika electoral district is three times more likely than a Calgarian to be a UCP member, and nearly seven times more likely than an Edmontonian, according to internal party data reviewed by CBC News.

According to a party list of 59,409 members as of March 31 — days before leadership review ballots were sent out — that southern riding has 2,303 UCP members, the most of any of Alberta's 87 constituencies. The top 12 ridings for UCP memberships are all outside the main cities. 

All told, the United Conservatives are predominantly a party of smaller-town and rural members; 60 per cent live outside Calgary and Edmonton. And it's in those pockets that right-wing frustration has mainly flared against Kenney, due to his pandemic management that was too restrictive for libertarian-minded conservatives, as well as what critics see as failures to wall off Alberta from Ottawa's influence and give proper care and feeding to the UCP grassroots.

"Ultimately, the voters are in the wrong places for Jason Kenney to expect a really good number (in the leadership review)," said Vitor Marciano, an aide to MLA Brian Jean, a leading internal critic of Kenney.  

Rocking the vote in the less-disgruntled urban and suburban ridings won't get it done, the veteran conservative campaigner says. 

"A really high Kenney number in Calgary–Lougheed could be cancelled out by an OK anti-Kenney number in Fort McMurray–Wood Buffalo."

Marciano lists those constituencies with purpose. Calgary–Lougheed is Kenney's own riding, with a paltry 472 UCP members; the other is Jean's, with 1,648. The tally in the former Wildrose leader's political district ranks third behind Cardston–Siksika and Rimbey–Rocky Mountain House–Sundre, represented by Kenney's deputy House leader Joseph Schow and Environment Minister Jason Nixon, respectively.

Those three ridings enjoyed surges in memberships because of hotly-contested candidate nomination contests. Actually, make that curtailed nomination contests in two of them, because the Jean-friendly challengers to the Kenney loyalists in Cardston and Rimbey were separately disqualified because of controversial past remarks or associations, letting Schow and Nixon win by acclamation.

Jodie Gateman, who had hoped to overtake Schow, says she had enlisted hundreds of new members for her nomination earlier this spring. Then, after her disqualification, hundreds more became members to register for Kenney's review. 

In the Rimbey riding, ousted contender Tim Hoven says his backers are similarly eager to cast ballots against Kenney. 

Along with Jean's riding, these three supposed hotbeds of anti-Kenney sentiment represent more than 10 per cent of the party's total membership.

The UCP does not publicly release a riding-by-riding breakdown of its members. However, the party shared this data with Jean's team during its formal protest of the leadership review's mail-in ballot format.