Upcoming Alberta byelections pose stiff challenge for Liberals

Just hours after Stephen Harper announced he was resigning his Calgary Heritage seat, the Liberal Party sent out an email blast to its supporters. Looking for donations, the party said it was hoping to kick-start its efforts to elect a LiberalMP in Harper's vacated riding.

It's an ambitious appeal. The Liberals were beaten in Calgary Heritage last fall by almost 38 percentagepoints and more than 22,000 votes.

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Byelections will need to be held soon in four ridings. The fundraising request from the Liberals mentioned two of them:Harper's and Medicine HatCardstonWarner. Thatseat was left vacant this spring when Conservative MP Jim Hillyerdied of a heart attack. A byelection campaign needs to be called for that riding within a few weeks.

A byelection will also be held in OttawaVanier, butdue to the recencyof former Liberal MP MaurilBlanger's death it is possible the government will wait to bundle this vote with one in Jason Kenney's Calgary Midnapore riding. Kenney says he'llresign thatseat once theAlberta Progressive Conservative leadership campaign officially begins in October.

That the Liberal fundraising email mentioned only Calgary Heritage and MedicineHatCardstonWarner suggests this could be the government's plan.

Tough ridings for the Liberals

In any case, these three Alberta ridings will be tough nuts for the Liberals to crack. Kenneywon Calgary Midnapore in 2015 with 66.7 per cent of the vote, defeating the Liberals' Haley Brown by 44points. In the former prime minister's riding, the Liberals' Brendan Miles captured just 26 per cent of the vote.

And MedicineHatCardstonWarner is one of the safest Conservative ridings in the country. Hillyerwon 68.8 per cent of ballots cast there in October. The Liberals' Glen Allen took just 17.9 per cent, putting him almost 51 points behind.

But if the Liberals are serious about mounting a viable campaign for any of these three seats, they could point to some of their recent successes in Alberta byelections.

Though they lost all three contests, in 2014 the Liberals saw a swing away from the Conservatives and towardtheir candidates in byelections held in Macleod (a22-point swing compared to the 2011 results), Yellowhead (32 points) and Fort McMurrayAthabasca (50 points).

In 2012, the Liberals nearly won Calgary Centre with a 36-point swing. The party ended up winning the riding in the last federal election.

Replicating the swing the Liberals experienced in Calgary Centre would putCalgary Heritage into play. Replicating the swing in Fort McMurrayAthabasca would put all three ridings in range.

But the current political landscape in the province does not suggest such a swing is in the cards.

Importance of local candidate

The precedent of a byelection forced by theretirementof a defeated prime minister is hard to find. The last time any byelection was held in similar circumstances to the one in Calgary Heritage was in 1939,following the resignation of R.B. Bennett. The winner won by acclamation.

The last time any party overcame a margin at least as large as Calgary Heritage'swas in 2010, when the Liberals took Winnipeg North away from the New Democratsafter the NDPhad won the seat by 40 points in 2008.

A margin as wide as MedicineHatCardstonWarner'swas overcome in a byelectionnearly 30 years ago, when the New Democrats won the riding of St. John's East away from the Tories. The PCshad won it by 72 points in the preceding election.

In both of these cases, however, the victory could largely be chalked up to the strength of the local candidate. The Liberals had put forward Kevin Lamoureux in Winnipeg North, a long-time provincial Liberal MLA. In St. John's East, the NDP had nominated Jack Harris, a well-known lawyerwho would later go on to lead the provincial NDP before returning to federal politics.

The Liberals will likely need to have a local candidate of similar renown if they are to have any chance whatsoever.

Conservatives still lead by wide margin in Alberta

The Conservatives captured 59.6 per cent of the vote in Alberta in last year's federal election. The Liberals took 24.5 per cent.

In recent polls, the Conservatives have averaged 56 per cent support in the province, while the Liberals have averaged 31 per cent.

Though that does suggest the Liberals have made some gains at the expense of the Conservatives, the swing between the two parties is just 10 points. That is nowhere near the kind of swing the Liberals would need to put any of the three Alberta ridings in play.

Justin Trudeau'sown popularity is limited in Alberta. In two polls, his approval rating has registered between 38 and 43 per cent, with between 49 and 54 per cent of Albertans disapproving of him. Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose, who hails from Edmonton, has better numbers than the prime minister.

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So for the Liberals to campaign on the premise of being competitive inany of these three Alberta ridings isoverly optimistic.

Instead, their benchmark should be scoring about 23 per cent in MedicineHatCardstonWarner and32 per cent in Calgary Heritage. Numbers like these would serve to back up the national polls andconfirmthe validity of their post-election popularity.

Doing better than these scores could be chalked up to a strong local campaign. Worse than these might suggest that the Liberals' enduring polling honeymoon is superficial.

Nevertheless, these Alberta byelections whenever they are held will pose a test to both the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Liberals have something to prove. The Conservativeshave some big shoes to fill.

Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney arearguablythe two figures most responsible for making the modern Conservative Party what it is today. Replacing them and matching their past electoral successes may be the toughest testof all.

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