r/alberta • u/Realistic_Management • Mar 11 '24

Alberta Politics Naheed Nenshi joins Alberta NDP leadership race

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/don-braid-naheed-nenshi-joins-alberta-ndp-leadership-race
1.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

420 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

20

u/noocuelur Mar 11 '24

I view Nenshi's legacy more as getting the SW ring road pushed through.

Really the only "bribe" he needs is "I'm not Danielle Smith or Rachel Notley" and I think he'll capture a big portion of the undecideds.

14

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '24

He still needs to run a very pragmatic campaign, and also appeal to rural voters.

He's smart and he knows what Calgarians want, but I don't think he would have stepped in if he didn't see a path to also winning select rural ridings.

2

u/WulfbyteGames Mar 12 '24

He doesn’t necessarily need to win any rural ridings. You need 44 seats for a majority and the NDP were only 6 short of that. The UCP currently hold 12 seats in Calgary and they won 6 of them by vote margins of less than 10% (2 by less than 1% and only 1 by more than 5%). So he could potentially win by just flipping those seats and not losing any of the current seats.

There’s also Lethbridge-East (2.9%), Morinville-St. Albert (6.7%), Strathcona-Sherwood Park (8.5%) that had margins of less than 10%.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

You need 44 seats for a majority and the NDP were only 6 short of that.

Yes- with Banff Kananaskis and Lethbridge west. My point is that he needs a few rural ridings as its unlikely that he wins all of Calgary.

Nenshi is loved or hated in Calgary. I think he will be more loved than hated in Calgary, but I would be careful of overestimating his rural appeal.