2019 Alberta general election


The 2019 Alberta general election was held on April 16, 2019, to elect 87 members to the 30th Alberta Legislature. In its first general election contest, the Jason Kenney-led United Conservative Party won 54.88% of the popular vote and 63 seats, reducing Premier Rachel Notley's governing Alberta New Democratic Party to Official Opposition with 24 seats. The United Conservative Party was formed in 2017 from a merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Wildrose Party after the NDP's victory in the 2015 election ended nearly 44 years of Progressive Conservative rule.
The NDP won 24 seats in total: including nineteen seats in Edmonton, three seats in Calgary, and the seats of Lethbridge-West and St. Albert, a total of 24. The UCP won the remaining 63 seats in the province. Two other parties that won seats in the 2015 election, the Alberta Party and the Alberta Liberals, failed to win any seats, making this election the first Alberta general election since 1993 where only two parties won seats.
The Election Act fixes the election date to a three-month period, between March 1 and May 31 in the fourth calendar year after the preceding election day which in this case was May 5, 2015. However, this did not affect the powers of the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the Legislative Assembly before this period.
This election resulted in the highest voter turnout since 1982 at 64%, rising from 57% in the last general election held in 2015. It marked only the fifth change of government since Alberta joined Canada in 1905, and also the first time that an incumbent government has failed to win a second term.

Results

The United Conservative Party made a small improvement in its overall share of the popular vote compared to the combined vote of the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties which preceded it. The party won 63 seats. The UCP finished no lower than second place in any constituency. UCP leader Jason Kenney won re-election in his constituency.
The Alberta New Democratic Party lost about one-fifth of its vote share, although due to the considerably higher turnout compared to 2015 it actually gained votes. The NDP with 24 seats formed the opposition in the Alberta legislature. The NDP finished first or second in 85 out of 87 ridings. NDP leader and outgoing premier Rachel Notley won re-election in her constituency.
No other party elected any MLAs, with the centrist Alberta Party being the only other party to run a full slate of candidates. The Alberta Party more than quadrupled its overall popular vote, but failed to win any seats. All three Alberta Party incumbents were defeated, with former leader Greg Clark being the only Alberta Party candidate to finish as high as second place. Current Alberta Party leader Stephen Mandel, a former mayor of Edmonton and PC cabinet minister, finished third in his own riding.
The Alberta Liberal Party finished fourth in the overall popular vote, with its vote share falling by more than three quarters. They were shut out of the legislature for the first time since 1982. Liberal Leader David Khan placed fourth in his constituency, which was formerly represented by his retiring predecessor David Swann.
A number of minor parties, including several running to the right of the UCP, contested the election, but none came close to winning any seats. The Alberta Independence Party finished fifth in the overall popular vote. The Freedom Conservative Party finished sixth, although they ran fewer candidates compared to the other parties. On average, FCP candidates polled the most votes outside the three largest parties. The FCP's only incumbent, who had been originally elected as a representative for the now defunct Wildrose Party, finished a distant third in his own riding. The Green Party of Alberta finished seventh in the overall popular vote and the Alberta Advantage Party finished eighth.
The last time only two parties took all of the seats was in 1993, and the only time before that was in 1913 after the defeat of Socialist Party MLA Charles O'Brien and before the rise of farmer and labour parties. Incumbent Independent MLA Rick Strankman - previously a UCP MLA - finished second place in his riding.
This was the first provincial election in which eligible voters could cast ballots in any advance poll in the province.
Notley's 24-member caucus is the largest Official Opposition caucus since the Liberals won 32 seats in 1993.

Summary results

Results of the Alberta Legislative election 2019
!rowspan="2" colspan="2"|Party
!rowspan="2"|Leader
!rowspan="2"|Candidates
!colspan="4"|Seats
!colspan="3"|Popular vote
!2015
!Dissol.
!2019
!+/-
!Votes
!%
!+/-

Results by region

Timeline

2015

The following is a list of scientific opinion polls of published voter intentions.

Incumbent MLAs not seeking re-election

The following MLAs have announced that they would not run in the 2019 provincial election:

Results by riding

The final list of candidates was published by Elections Alberta on March 29, 2019. The official results were published on May 14, 2019.
Party leaders are in bold. Candidate names appear as they appeared on the ballot.
† = Not seeking re-election

‡ = Running for re-election in different riding

Northern Alberta

Edmonton

Central

North

South

Suburbs

Central Alberta

West

East

Calgary

Central

East

Northwest

South

Suburbs

Southern Alberta

Footnotes