Edmonton has been historically more conservative than most other large cities in Canada. Since 1958, Conservatives have won more of the seats here than any other party, although in most cases with smaller pluralities than the astronomical margins in rural Alberta. Social Credit, at first a radical movement but by the 1940's morphing into a conservative-style party, took several seats between 1935 and 1958. From 1972 to 1988, Conservatives won every Edmonton seat, although occasionally with less than half the votes in the district.[a]
1980s-1990s
From 1935 to 2008, the CCF/NDP won only one seat in Edmonton (the only one in all of Alberta), despite taking as much as 18% of the province-wide federal vote. The NDP won an Alberta seat in 1988 when Ross Harvey won Edmonton East. They also came within 274 votes to win the April 1986 Pembina by-election, the seat was narrowly retained by the Progressive Conservatives.
The Progressive Conservatives managed to win 7 seats (out of 8) in the area in 1988 despite a significant decline in support.
Both the PC and the NDP were swept out in 1993 in favor of the Liberals and the Reform Party. The gap in votes between the Reform Party and the Liberals increased in subsequent elections, allowing the Reform Party and its successors to win a majority of the seats in the region but the Liberal vote share would exceed the 30% mark up to the 2004 election.
2000s-2020s
In 2006, the Conservatives again achieved a total sweep of Alberta, repeating their 1958-1988 shut-outs, but this was broken by the New Democratic Party in Edmonton-Strathcona in 2008. The NDP has held this seat every election since, including the 2011. In 2011, the NDP finished second in all the other Edmonton-area ridings except Edmonton-Sherwood Park (where it came in third behind the Conservative winner and an independent candidate).
In 2015, the Liberals took two ridings, the NDP retained Edmonton Strathcona, and the Tories held the remainder. In 2019, Conservatives took all the Edmonton ridings except Edmonton Strathcona, which remained in NDP hands as the only non-Tory riding in Alberta. The Conservatives' dominance in the Edmonton representation was achieved despite Conservative candidates taking a combined 55 percent of the city vote. The near-total NDP shut-out was achieved despite the NDP taking 20 percent of the city vote. Such was repeated in 2021.[1]
Political geography
Edmonton is far friendlier to centre-left parties than the rest of Alberta. It is the current base of the provincial NDP. The NDP scored an upset victory in the 2015 provincial election in part by taking all of Edmonton, and held all but one Edmonton seat even as it lost its majority dominance in the Legislature in 2019.
Edmonton is the only part of Alberta where the federal Liberals have consistently broken through in recent times (since 1993). It held two to four seats here from 1993 to 2006, although never winning by large margins. The Liberals lost all their Edmonton seats in 2006, but won more in 2015 before losing them again in 2021. The four seats the Liberals won in 1993 were the first they had won anywhere in Alberta since 1968.
The safest Tory seats are located in the more suburban ridings outside of the city core. From 2004 to 2011, their best riding in the region was Edmonton—Spruce Grove, most of which is now Edmonton West. In 2011, for instance, the Conservatives won 71% of the vote there. They also won more than 60% of the vote in Edmonton—St. Albert, Edmonton—Leduc and Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont.
Liberals, on the other hand, have recently had most of their success in the downtown ridings, not in the suburbs. Liberals won seats in 2015 and 2019. One of the Liberal victories in 2015 was in Edmonton Centre.
The NDP, both provincially and federally, has had proven popularity in the university-oriented and culturally-diverse area of Old Strathcona, and recently has come in second or better in almost all the ridings in the Edmonton area.
^A Conservative won the Edmonton Strathcona seat four times with less than half of the votes during that period - in 1962 with just a bit more than a third of the votes.
^Elected as a Liberal in 2004, left the Liberal caucus in April 2005 to protest the Sponsorship scandal.
^Elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1988, was expelled from the PC caucus in April 1990 and joined the Liberal caucus later that year.
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