How the outcome of 'battleground Calgary' played into the UCP's win

Throughout the election, both the United Conservative Party and the Alberta New Democrats put a target on Alberta's largest city: it was widely held that Calgary's 26 seats would play a crucial role in determining the ultimate victor. 

Given the NDP lead in Edmonton, and the UCP's hold on areas outside the province's two largest cities, observers predicted the election could come down to how the results in Calgary played out.

In the end, the NDP did make some significant gains in Calgary beyond the re-election of its three incumbents, Kathleen Ganley, Irfan Sabir and Joe Ceci.

As of 1:45 a.m., the NDP was projected to win 14 of Calgary's 26 ridings — some by razor-thin margins as small as seven votes.

The six closest ridings in the city were decided by a combined 851 votes.

But province-wide, it quickly became clear that wouldn't be good enough: the UCP's strong performance outside of the major urban centres would deliver the day.

"Places like Red Deer-South. This was supposed to be the election where [the NDP] made some of those gains, maybe into the smaller cities," pollster Janet Brown told CBC News' Rob Brown.

"Maybe not into the true rural areas, but some of the smaller cities. They didn't quite get there this time."

Still, the results also revealed significant changes within Calgary, with the NDP appearing to lock up vote shares previously claimed by the Alberta Party and other smaller parties, and eating slightly into the UCP's vote share.

As of 1:45 a.m, the NDP had earned the most votes across all Calgary ridings, with 49.3 per cent of the total ballots cast in the city, compared to 48.2 per cent for the UCP. 

"The urban-rural divide is significant," said Mount Royal University political science professor Lori Williams. "There are a lot of divisions amongst Albertans, within the UCP, between urban and rural. This is going to be a real challenge, going forward, for leaders."

Prior to polls being closed, UCP strategist Erika Barootes said the party was confident in its hold on suburban south Calgary.

"But you're kind of looking at some of those Calgary-Glenmore, Calgary-Bow, Calgary-Acadia — [those] are some of the ones that have gone back and forth in a lot of the polls," she said. "But, we're looking for 'W's there tonight."

Calgary-Glenmore was projected for the NDP by a margin of 30 votes. The UCP was projected to win Calgary-Bow by 385 votes.