Despite early opinion polls pointing to a win for the Wildrose Alliance, the Progressive Conservatives pulled out to yet another overwhelming majority victory in the 2012 provincial general election on Monday.
The unofficial results for the election saw the Tories capture a total of 62 seats, a slight decrease from the 66 seats they held prior to the election. Premier Alison Redford was among the incumbent MLAs to win in her riding of Calgary-Elbow.
This is the 12th consecutive majority victory for the Progressive Conservatives, who have been in power since 1971.
Although they were not able to defeat the Tories as predicted, the Wildrose Alliance did make some huge gains in this election, going from four seats to a total of 16.
Notably, Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith scored a victory in her own constituency of Highwood. This election also marked the first time that the Wildrose had won seats during a provincial general election.
The polls were not nearly as kind to the Alberta Liberals, who only held on to five of their eight seats. Notably, Liberal leader and incumbent Raj Sherman was nearly defeated in his home riding of Edmonton-Meadowlark.
The NDP improved their fortunes slightly, going up from two to four seats. Notably, all four seats were based in Edmonton.
The Alberta Party, which billed itself as the “centrist” party within the election, lost its only seat in the riding of Calgary-Currie. (The incumbent, Dave Taylor, did not run again.)
In the Town & Country region, PC candidate Maureen Kubinec was elected for her first term with a total of 7,447 votes, scoring a narrow victory over Wildrose candidate Link Byfield, who had 7,106 votes.
Incumbent Jeff Johnson was elected to his second term as MLA for the Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater constituency with a total of 7,377 votes.
Surprisingly, incumbent and PC candidate Ray Danyluk was defeated in the Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills constituency, losing out to Wildrose candidate Shayne Saskiw with a total of 5,950 votes to 5,417. Danyluk has held on to the riding since 2001.
In terms of the popular vote, the Progressive Conservatives managed to snag a total of 44 per cent of all votes cast, while the Wildrose scored 34 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Liberals and the NDP each had 10 per cent of the popular vote. The Alberta Party captured one per cent of the vote.
It should be noted that all results are unofficial until they have been verified by Elections Alberta.
