The Battle After the Ballot: Who Gets to Define Calgary-Shaw?

Before September’s by-election, Calgary-Shaw would have been an unlikely place to look for an Alberta NDP breakthrough. The riding has voted conservative in every provincial election since its creation except 2015, and the UCP carried it comfortably in 2023. Yet, according to the still-unofficial count, NDP candidate Kyle Campbell received 7,461 votes to UCP candidate Mike Derry’s 6,879, a margin of 582 votes. Progressive Tory candidate Kyle Joseph finished third with 978 votes, while Liberal candidate John Roggeveen received 602. Official results will be announced September 24.

Much of the post-election discussion has focused on why: dissatisfaction with the government, the October referendum, lower voter turnout, the emergence of the Progressive Tories, or some combination thereof. For those watching Alberta politics closely, however, the more revealing question is how each party has chosen to communicate the result.

Naheed Nenshi quickly characterized the victory as a political “earthquake,” arguing that there are no longer safe conservative seats in Calgary. Importantly, though, his messaging has not rested solely on opposition to the referendum, instead moving away from it. While Nenshi acknowledged that national unity arose at the doors, he stated that conversations were repeatedly brought back to health care, education and affordability. Strategically, that distinction matters: if Calgary-Shaw were understood primarily as a protest against one referendum, its lessons might be too difficult for the NDP to carry into the 2027 election. By connecting the victory to broader policy concerns, Nenshi can instead frame the result as a reflection of a potentially more durable openness among Calgary voters to considering the NDP.

Premier Danielle Smith adopted a notably different tone. Her immediate response was brief and institutional, congratulating Campbell and thanking Derry, while her office subsequently attributed the defeat primarily to low turnout and a divided conservative vote. The arithmetic makes the argument understandable: Joseph’s 978 votes exceeded Campbell’s 582-vote margin, although there is no way to know how those voters would have voted in a two-party contest.

For the UCP, the strategic value of the vote-split explanation is significant. It frames Calgary-Shaw as a challenge of mobilizing and consolidating an existing conservative electorate, rather than evidence that Calgary voters are abandoning the government or its policy direction. It also reinforces a familiar argument around conservative unity in the province: when multiple parties compete for voters on the right, the practical beneficiary often is the NDP.

Peter Guthrie, meanwhile, has every reason to challenge the vote split interpretation. The Progressive Tory Party (PTP) leader rejected the characterization that his party “split” the conservative vote, arguing instead that votes must be earned and presenting the PTP as a genuinely distinct political option. For a new party seeking to establish its own identity, accepting the UCP’s vote-split premise would risk casting the PTP primarily as a spoiler; rejecting it allows Guthrie to make a different case, that some traditionally conservative voters are actively looking for an alternative and that his party intends to compete for them.

That leaves Calgary-Shaw as an important signal, but not necessarily a roadmap for 2027. Alberta’s ten-question referendum is set for October 19th, including a question on whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or begin the process toward a subsequent binding referendum on separation. Each party is therefore working to establish its preferred interpretation early: the NDP as evidence of greater political openness in Calgary; the UCP as a lesson in turnout and conservative unity; and the Progressive Tories as evidence that there may be room for another conservative political option.

For those of us watching what comes next, the contest over the meaning of Calgary-Shaw may be nearly as instructive as the result itself, because the narratives each party is advancing now provide an early indication of how they intend to speak to Calgary voters as Alberta moves closer to the next provincial election.