The UCP wins a majority in Alberta. Thank polarization for that

Polarization gets a bad rap in politics but, as Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party celebrate a closely fought election victory in Alberta this morning, they can partially thank the deep rift in the electorate for their achievement.

Not only has polarization been shown to drive voter turnout, but it also makes voters more likely to vote in opposition to a party they dislike to keep them out of power.

The UCP can “absolutely” thank that dynamic for motivating jaded conservatives to vote for them in last night’s election, said Janet Brown, a well-known pollster in Alberta.

Alberta boasted a record turnout in advanced voting, and while the overall turnout did not reach the historic heights of the 2019 election, the overall number was much higher than other Canadian post-pandemic elections.

While the UCP will form a comfortable majority government, the NDP will represent the largest official opposition in Alberta’s history. The NDP also captured their largest share of the popular vote in the party’s history.

Both parties preyed on voters’ fear of the other side, said Brown. But because the NDP focused on Smith almost to the exclusion of providing a positive case for themselves, it made it easier for the UCP to land those attacks.

“The (NDP) focused on Smith, I don’t think they really put enough effort into demonstrating what kind of government they could deliver. And so they left voters comparing the 2015 NDP government to Danielle Smith, and they’re left scared of both prospects,” said Brown.

Because only two major parties had a real chance at winning seats, the polarized electorate also made turnout more important to each party’s chances, according to the EKOS polling company.

“Turnout is going to play a huge factor on election day, as there aren’t many would-be swing voters left in the province,” the pollster wrote in a dispatch accompanying its final polling results.

“All of the data in the poll point to this election having one of the most polarized electorates in modern Canadian history.”

A recent study on political polarization found some under-discussed benefits, mainly in boosting political participation, along with possible downsides.

One key possible benefit is that “affective polarization,” which boosts a person’s positive feelings towards their own party and dislike toward rival parties, brings new people to politics. Brown describes these people as “low bandwidth” voters, who don’t necessarily have a lot of time to consume political news.

Affective polarization’s boost to turnout appears to reflect negative partisanship, as voters focus on keeping the enemies out rather than on having their vision of society represented,” wrote Eelco Harteveld and Markus Wagner, two European political scientists, in the study on polarization.

“The resulting incumbent is then perhaps chosen less for their programme but rather for who they are not. This has unwelcome implications for accountability and representation, as electoral support becomes a negative rather than a positive endorsement of parties,” the researchers wrote.

In the tight election campaign, it came down to how much disillusioned UCP voters feared another NDP government, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University.

“What do these reluctant conservatives do? Do they hold their nose and vote UCP? Or do they say, you know, a pox on both their houses? I’m just going to stay at home,” said Bratt.

The election results show that fear of an NDP government is still relatively strong in Calgary and Bratt said the election’s sole debate had something to do with that.

“If you watched the debate, it was almost like Danielle Smith was the challenger and Rachel Notley was being forced to defend her record, just as she was in 2019,” said Bratt.

“Four years later, if you lost your business, or you lost your job in 2017, I don’t think that’s something that you’re going to going to forget,” said Bratt.

The clear choice between the two parties, with minor parties barely featuring in the campaign, created a rare contrast that resembled a U.S.-style presidential election.

Compare that to Ontario, where voters chose last year between three broadly centrist parties that were mostly distinguished by the personality of the party leader. Turnout reached a record low with 43.5 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot as Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives swept to a new majority.

Although polarization may boost turnout during the election, Bratt said it will create some problems when the government’s new mandate starts. The UCP will have no cabinet representation from the provincial capital as the party was completely shut out of Edmonton.

“It will be a rural-dominated caucus in an urban province and when we talk about polarization, the rural-urban divide is right at the top of that list,” said Bratt.