Danielle Smith takes a hit with teachers’ strike backlash, but still has political capital to burn

Danielle Smith knows what it’s like to bet the farm on one thing and lose it all. When she crossed the floor from the Wildrose to Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives in 2014, the punishment was swift and absolute. Her political career was widely written off as finished. Having tasted death once, she knows better than most not to tempt it twice. Since becoming Premier of Alberta, she has approached every fight with precision, knowing exactly how much capital she can spend, and when exactly to spend it. The teachers’ strike is the first time she has chosen to spend big. Support for charter schools, homeschooling, and private education models has long served as a point of overlap between factions of libertarians and social conservatives in the province. Roughly one in 10 students in Alberta is now educated outside the traditional public system—enough of a parental cohort to consistently push for greater choice and reduced union influence. That base likely gave Smith confidence there was at least a floor of support beneath her to take on this fight. So far, the political cost has been significant, though far from a death blow. A Leger poll conducted during the first week of the strike, well before the government introduced an unprecedented back-to-work legislation invoking the notwithstanding clause, shows that Smith’s approval rating has dropped to 38 percent—the lowest since 2023. Nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) said their opinion of the UCP leader had worsened. And on the core question of the strike itself, a majority (60 percent) said they sided with educators. This is the sharpest reputational hit Smith has taken since assuming office. And it’s coming from everyday Albertans, not just the usual ideological critics. But it looks like she can afford it. The next election is still distant. The most acute frustration—weeks of disrupted schedules, scrambled childcare, and tense protests—is already fading. By 2027, people will remember the strike happened, but the emotional urgency will be gone. That isn’t to say the issues raised in this labour dispute are trivial. The government’s refusal to meaningfully address class sizes is a structural problem that will continue to shape learning conditions long after the current contract is imposed. But it’s also a slow-moving crisis that may not drive ballot decisions two years from now. Smith knows this, of course. At least now we can safely dismiss any rumours of an early election for the sake of UCP gaining seats. The one-third, one-third, one-third reality As independent pollster Janet Brown put it in a recent Alberta Edge interview on The Hub, public opinion in Alberta doesn’t split Left versus Right. It sorts into three main groups. “Almost every question was producing basically the same numbers,” Brown said about recent polling patterns. “A third of the people gave you—excuse my language—the crazy-ass right-wing answer. A third of the people gave you the crazy-ass left-wing answer. And a third of the people gave you kind of a more pragmatic, ‘Well, I can see it both ways’ answer.” That breakdown is key to understanding why Smith has not just survived, but thrived through storms that have sunk other premiers. As long as she holds both her ideological base and that pragmatic middle third, she remains secure. The middle doesn’t even have to like her. They just need to believe she can deliver for them more (or break fewer things) than the alternative. Go ahead and test the theory. Take the separatist debate, the Sovereignty Act, trans policy, Alberta Health Services restructuring, even the “corruptcare” allegations. Each time—as Brown describes it—the Left “lights their hair on fire,” while the Right rallies around the premier. The pragmatic middle, meanwhile, shrugs and stays. They might be annoyed, but they’re not motivated enough to want a new government. When times are good, the economy can do a lot of the heavy-lifting to quell concerns. The progressive third is not her market, so why even bother? This moment is different The teachers’ strike is the first time that this equilibrium has shifted. That’s because everyone—Left, Right, and middle—experienced the disruption in their own homes. You don’t have to follow politics to notice when school is cancelled. One might have expected that blowing up the health-care system would’ve caused a similar backlash. But so far, that restructuring has largely been administrative. Most Albertas have not yet felt it at the point of delivery. In health, Smith still appears in control. That is the same image she is trying to project now. Crucially, the same Leger poll that shows her approval dropping also shows that if an election were held today, the UCP would still win—albeit more narrowly—with 44 percent of decided votes compared to 39 percent for the NDP. They say in politics, you frontload the unpopular decisions because that’s when your political capital is highest. What’s remarkable about Smith’s time in office is that she has not had to burn through much of that capital until now. Part of that is structural. The opposition under Naheed Nenshi has struggled to define itself. But part of it is also Smith’s political skill. Even in conflict, she has a way of presenting herself as reasonable, approachable, and genuinely trying to fix something. And she still has time. In politics, time is leverage. She’s got plenty of it.