The votes are in from the three provincial by-elections held on Monday and unofficially Alberta’s NDP won two of them.
The outlier was the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills constituency, where Tara Sawyer of the United Conservative Party came out on top with above 61 per cent of the votes to outdistance Bev Toews of Alberta’s NDP with about 20 per cent, Cam Davies of the Republican Party of Alberta with just under 18 per cent, and Bill Tufts of the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition with about 1.2 per cent.
The Alberta New Democratic Party Leader Naheed Nenshi received over 82 per cent of the votes in Edmonton-Strathcona to surge past Darby Crouch of the UCP with just under 14 per cent. This result would earn Nenshi a seat in the legislature. He won the party leadership vote just over one year ago (June 22, 2024) to replace Rachel Notley as the ninth leader of the Alberta NDP.
Fellow NDP candidate Gurtej Singh Brar is unofficially the winner in Edmonton-Ellerslie with more than 50 per cent support to get past Naresh Bhardwaj of the UCP with a little over 38 per cent.
According to Elections Alberta, the announcement of official results will be made on Thursday, July 3rd.
If these results stand, it would mean that Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government would hold 47 of the 87 total seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and Alberta’s NDP would have 38. There are currently two independent MLAs.
A total of 33,494 votes were cast in the three by-elections with 61.09 per cent coming in on election day (June 23rd). The Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills riding had 45.7 per cent of those total votes to lead the way with 15,381. Edmonton-Strathcona followed with 9,665 and Edmonton-Ellerslie rounded out the group with 8,511.
