I’m a political nerd of many decades. I ran a mock election in my Grade 4 social studies class. Election campaigns are my playoffs and election night is my Super Bowl.
So as election day approaches and the national polls tighten, I’m enthralled by the prospect of what might be one of the most exciting election nights in decades on Monday.
But not here in St. Albert.
That’s because the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has a lock on the Botanical Arts City that goes back more than 65 years (when you count the parties that created the modern version) – and even with the world-changing events that have upended our national political scene in the last few months, this political nerd doesn’t see that changing.
More importantly, neither does the patron saint of political nerds, Philippe J. Fournier of 338canada.com, whose riding tracker lists St. Albert-Sturgeon River, our new federal riding, as a safe CPC hold.
Let’s start with our new boundaries. The newly-drawn riding is more Conservative than its predecessor riding of St. Albert-Edmonton – though not overwhelmingly so.
In 2021, St. Albert-Edmonton returned Michael Cooper for his third straight win with just under 48 per cent of the total vote, compared to just under 29 per cent of the NDP, 18 per cent for the Liberals and six per cent for the People’s Party of Canada (PPC).
If you’re curious, the St. Albert side of the riding voted more strongly Conservative than the Edmonton side did, with 50 per cent of the local vote going Tory in 2021, to 29 per cent for the NDP, 15 per cent for the Liberals and six per cent for the PPC.
But Cooper also won a clear plurality in Edmonton polls as well, with 43 per cent of the vote to 29 per cent for the NDP, 22 per cent for the Liberals and six per cent (again) for the PPC.
Transposing the votes from 2021 into the new riding, the Conservative vote share goes up to 56 per cent, compared to 24 per cent for the NDP, 11 per cent for the Liberals and eight per cent for the PPC.
The new riding, already solidly blue, basically gets more so.
Some have noted on social media that the Liberals seem much stronger in St. Albert in 2025 than in past elections (based mainly on lawn signs on private property), and if the NDP vote here follows the national example and collapses into the Liberal column, it could make the race more interesting.
But it’s likely not enough to make this riding truly competitive, as some seats in Edmonton and Calgary are shaping up to be. Even if the entire NDP vote were to collapse into the Liberals (and it won’t; a die-hard rump will vote orange no matter what), and even if some Conservative voters shift Liberal based on the Trump threat, the gap is probably too great to close.
And that’s the way it’s been for more than 65 years here.
You have to go back to 1957 – John Diefenbaker’s first term as prime minister – to find the last Liberal representing our area – Joseph Miville Dechene, representing the riding of Athabaska, in case you’re curious.
Over the ensuing 22 elections in St. Albert’s riding from 1958 to 2021, Conservatives and their predecessors, the Progressive Conservatives (PCs), Reformers and the Canadian Alliance) have racked up victory after victory, with an average vote of 55 per cent and an average margin of victory of more than 30 per cent over the next closest competitor. (I added up the votes in each of those elections and made a spreadsheet to get those numbers. Did I mention I’m a nerd?)
The only time in that near-seven-decade stretch that it’s even been close between the PC/Reform/Alliance/Conservative juggernaut and anyone else here was in 1986, in a byelection caused by the resignation of PC MP Peter Elzinga, who jumped from federal to provincial politics. In that byelection, Walter van de Walle won the riding of Pembina (the riding that included St. Albert at the time) for the PCs by just 276 votes over NDP challenger and former mayor of Edmonton Ivor Dent – a one per cent margin.
In the next general election in 1988, van de Walle won with 47 per cent of the vote, 27 points ahead of his NDP challenger. In other words, back to normal.
History is not everything, especially in politics. But it can be a good teacher.
And while I couldn’t say with certainty today which party will win Monday’s election or by how much, I wouldn’t bet against Michael Cooper celebrating his fourth victory that evening.
The only question will be which side of the House of Commons he’ll be sitting on when he returns to Ottawa – a question that will be decided not in St. Albert, but by voters in dozens of battleground ridings in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. (and maybe a few in Edmonton).
