so, it turns out that that big swing of undecideds went disproportionately to the conservatives in alberta. if you look at the numbers, it comes up to a 90% swing in the undecideds. that should be tempered slightly - i suspect they probably made sure they were going to win in calgary, whether it changed the results or not. but, it's still a pretty hard swing in a scenario where you wouldn't expect a bias in the data of that sort. alberta is such a conservative society, that you don't expect a shy tory effect there; you expect that to work the other way around, for everybody to honk around at church in their pickups by day, but maybe go home and secretly think something else. i might rather suspect that the ndp are going to analyze their data and realize there was low turnout - they couldn't get their base out. there's some evidence of this in edmonton, where a tighter than expected outcome would be more likely representative of apathy than conversion.

well, she governed like an oil despot. it's easy to understand a level of deflation. i mentioned previously that it was a lesser catastrophe calculation, rather than a lesser evil one. and, while the political reality in alberta is different now, notley may have seriously damaged the party's long term ability to attract left-wing voters.

to be clear: i'm sure there was excitement about the conservative party and everything, but the quick crunch is that the dominant factor was most likely low turnout on the ndp side. that's how you get these inflated conservative numbers in the undecided swings.

it was a hard task, and nobody gave her a chance, and rightly so. but, the data did suggest some possibility of a minority outcome, if the undecideds leaned that direction. they didn't, apparently. i think a little oddly.

and, were people just legitimately undecided until the last minute? i'm not sure what about. kenny himself?

whatever it was, it's not surprising, if even not as disturbing as it should be. the ndp largely governed like conservatives.

if the numbers come back as i suspect them to, the ndp in alberta are going to have a lot of contemplating to do, as it would mean that their base abandoned them for the sin of governing, and it might be hard to get it back.