The Return (Also: Glenmore and the Wildrose Alliance)

No one has asked me to return to blogging, but after a summer long break, I'm back. But I am neither bigger, nor particularly better.

I thought that for my first post back, I'd provide some preliminary thoughts on the Calgary Glenmore byelection. I haven't had a chance to really sit down with the numbers and figure out what they mean, but some things stand out even with a cursory examination of the top level results.

First, some facts. In 2008, Avalon Roberts scored 4213 votes, or 33% for the Alberta Liberals. Ron Stevens won 6436 votes, or 51% for the Tories, while Ryan Sadler garnered 8% (1025 votes) for the Wild Rose Alliance. Turnout was 41.3%.

In yesterday's by election, turnout was approximately the same as in 2008, at 40.5%. This is nothing short of astonishing for a by election. Roberts won 34% with 3776 votes, Paul Hinman scored 4052 votes for 37% for the Wild Rose Alliance, and Colley-Urquhart rounded out the top 3 with 26% or 2863 votes.

In the coming days, I intend to do a closer, poll by poll analysis of the results, but in the meantime, I think it is possible to make a few observations. Although the ALP vote total dropped 437 votes, turnout also dropped and Roberts' proportion of the vote remained substantially the same. The Wildrose Alliance vote, which increased by 29% and 2751 votes, appears to have come mostly from former supporters of Ron Stevens and the Conservative Party.

Obviously, the devil is in the details, and it will take a closer analysis of the poll by poll results to tell what really happened (such an analysis should follow in the next week or so). In the meantime, we can construct two different, although substantially similar, versions of what happened yesterday in Glenmore. Over the next couple of days, I'll write on each of these scenarios.