Rural Alberta was on track Monday night to remain firmly Conservative. Read More
Southern Albertans remain steady in their support for the Conservative Party
Southern Albertans remain steady in their support for the Conservative Party
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Rural Alberta was on track Monday night to remain firmly Conservative.
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As polls began reporting Monday evening, Conservative candidates were leading in seven rural ridings in southern and central Alberta. Nationally as of 8:42 p.m.
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Nationally Mark Carney’s Liberals were leading in 156 ridings to 131 for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, with 172 seats needed for a majority government.
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Lethbridge
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Noon News Roundup
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In Lethbridge, incumbent Conservative MP Rachael Thomas, facing a challenge against a former Lethbridge mayor, Chris Spearman, running for the Liberals, had a big early lead.
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Spearman, a Pincher-area resident who campaigned on fighting to protect the Oldman River from the proposed Grassy Mountain coal mine along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, admitted his odds of winning were slim. Thomas in 2021, running under her maiden name of Harder, won the riding with 55.6 per-cent-support.
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“I’m definitely not surprised that Rachael Thomas is going to win,” said Trevor Harrison, a retired University of Lethbridge political sociologist.
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Four other candidates — the NDP’s Nathan Svoboda, Green Party’s Amber Murray, People’s Party’s Clara Piedalue and Christian Heritage Party’s Marc Slingerland — contested the southern Alberta riding, which also includes several rural communities near Lethbridge as well as Lethbridge County.
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Bow River
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In the Bow River riding east and south of Calgary, the Conservative’s new candidate, David Bexte, a Vulcan County farmer with 25 years in Alberta’s energy sector, is running in the safe Conservative seat, was up substantially early on over the Liberals’ Bentley Barnes, NDP’s Louisa Gwin, Christian Heritage Party’s Tom Lipp and United Party’s Aaron Patton.
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The riding’s residents will have a new representative, as former MP Martin Shields, 76, who held Bow River for the Conservatives for the past decade and won the last election with almost 70-per-cent support, decided against running again.
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Yellowhead
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The Yellowhead riding, which includes Banff and Canmore, and both Banff and Jasper national parks, will also have a new MP. William Stevenson, a Carstairs accountant who won the Conservative nomination last year against incumbent MP Gerald Soroka, had a big preliminary lead on the Liberals’ Michael Fark, NDP’s Avni Soma, People’s Party’s Vicky Bayford and Christian Heritage Party’s Dale Heath.