Ladies and Gentleman, now we have a horse race!

It's official, April 23 is the date when Albertans will go to the polls to elect our next provincial government. Our current premier, Alison Redford met yesterday  with Lt.-Gov. Donald Ethell in his Alberta legislature office and the writ was issued at 10:00 am.

Immediately following her meeting with the Lt-Gov the Premier joined by members of her caucus spoke to the press on the steps of the legislature and had the following to say;

"This election will be a defining moment, where we will decide what we want the future to be and how we want to conduct ourselves, and I'm looking forward to talking to Albertans and letting them make those decisions over the next 28 days".

Pretty positive attitude for a politician who is facing what may be the battle of her political career up to this point. There's a lot riding on this election, Premier Redford who only late last year took the reins of the Conservative party via a leadership race, accepted with the role a lot of partisan responsibility. After all, the Conservative party has been running this province for 40 years and with just one more win will become Canada's longest serving government at 44 years, so needless to say the party will not look kindly on any sitting Premier that loses the throne. With Redford, seeking her first public mandate as premier she has a number of challenges to face going into this election, some of her creation, some not. So what makes this election so different from ones of the past? Let's face one reality, this is Alberta, a place where even a guy like Don Getty can hold the Premiers office, or an often times "not so sober" former Liberal turned Conservative, Premier Ralph Klein can be loved as a "man of the people" and referred to universally throughout the province as just "Ralph". The bottom line in the past was as long as you dressed an individual in Conservative Blue, chances were they would claim electoral victory. However I have a feeling it won't be quite that easy this time around. Why?

Unfortunately, for the Conservative party with less than a month before Albertans cast their ballots it appears that this election will be anything but a sure victory. We now have a new contender stepping into the ring, the Wildrose Party of Alberta, led by Danielle Smith.

An Ipsos poll taken just days prior to Monday’s election call in Alberta shows the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose party tied with the support of 38 per cent of decided voters. Here's the breakdown;

Progressive Conservatives - 38%
Wildrose Party Of Alberta - 38%
NDP - 12%
Liberals - 11%
Other - 2%

(In case you add up the numbers they come to 101%, I assume this is due to rounding)

Now, while it is important to keep in mind that this is the popular vote and does not mean it will translate into legislative seats ( in 2008 the Liberals had 25% of the popular vote in polls and this resulted in only 9 seats).

Now another bit of insight gleaned from this same poll is who Albertans favor as a Premier, the results were as follows:

Allison Redford (Progressive Conservative) - 25%

Danielle Smith (Wildrose) - 24%

Raj Sherman (Liberal) - 8%

Brian Mason (NDP) - 6%

Glenn Taylor (Alberta Party) - 2%

What does all of this mean?
Well I am old school when it comes to polls and have to agree with our current Premier Redford that the only poll that really counts is the one held on election day.

But, (yes, I know "there's always a but") none of these numbers look very reassuring for the Conservatives when you consider that the party was a virtual juggernaut for 40 years. However during that time they were the right wing party in a province not too keen on anything left of center. Over the years they have moved more towards the center, leaving a void on the right, one that the Wildrose party is hoping to fill.

As a right wing Albertan the biggest concern I have is that while the two top contenders battle it out over basically the same group of voters, one of the underdogs (Liberals or NDP) may pick a few scraps off the floor and gather a bit of strength. I don't believe for a moment that either the Liberals or the NDP will come even close to a majority, what we could end up is with is a minority government  formed by either the PC's or Wildrose. another unknown in this election will be potential voter turnout, the last provincial election saw only a dismal 41 % of eligible voters cast a ballot (pathetic isn't it?). This leaves a lot of unknown potential support sitting in the wings for the parties. Just my thoughts......

No matter what the outcome, it will be one hell of a race, and could result in the end of a political dynasty, Alberta's first duly elected female Premier, a minority government with the smaller players just a little bigger, or maybe all of the above. Only time (about 28 days to be exact) will tell.