Nenshi voted new Alberta NDP leader in landslide victory

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Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi romped to a landslide first-ballot victory on Saturday afternoon to become the Alberta NDP’s new leader and succeed the outgoing Rachel Notley.

Nenshi, 52, becomes the party’s ninth leader as well as its first from Calgary, ushering in a new era for the NDP that currently sits as the largest official Opposition in Alberta’s history.

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He gathered more than 86 per cent of the vote on the first ballot, far more than necessary to meet the 50 per cent plus one threshold for victory, according to results announced in Calgary.

“This extraordinary movement is an example of what’s possible when you stop thinking small and start dreaming big,” he told the crowd, which included Notley.

“We are a completely unified team.”

Nenshi said he looks forward to the next election, scheduled three years from now.

“Winning that election in 2027 is not the end result. It’s the means to an end result,” he said.

“We will work hard for this Alberta.

“The NDP already represents the median Albertan, and I just think more Albertans need to see that and hear that.”

Nenshi finished with 62,746 votes, followed by Kathleen Ganley with 5,899 (eight per cent), Sarah Hoffman with 3,063 (four per cent), and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse with 1,222 (one per cent).

He said he was “blown away” by the margin of victory, saying he wasn’t sure he believed advanced poll numbers that predicted his win.

An NDP official said 85,277 members were eligible to cast a ballot when the race ended, an increase of 69,000 from when the race began months ago. The party says 72,930 members voted, resulting in a turnout of 85.6 per cent.

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“Albertans have spoken,” Nenshi said. “Albertans have spoken in massive, massive numbers.”

Nenshi told the crowd his number of votes was the most received by any provincial party leader in Canadian history. He dwarfed the 34,949 first-ballot votes Premier Danielle Smith received in her election as United Conservative Party leader in 2022.

Some in the UCP have welcomed the challenge from the three-term Calgary mayor.

“Running against him would present us with the mother of target-rich environments,” a source in the premier’s office told Postmedia’s Rick Bell earlier this year.

Nenshi told the crowd: “Much has been made of the ability of this version of the conservative movement, the UCP to be able to organize, and what we saw today is that the Alberta NDP has massively out-organized them.”

Smith posted her congratulations on social media.

“Serving as Opposition leader is a great honour, and I look forward to the dialogue we will have on how to best serve Albertans,” she said.

Nenshi touted what he believes is his ability to beat Smith at the ballot box with policy pitches, including boosting funding to both public health care and education, reversing the government’s policies on 2SLGBTQ+ youth and fully implementing $10-a-day child care.

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Nenshi was the only one out of the four candidates not to be a sitting MLA, and by convention, will seek to become one in the coming months. That could mean running in outgoing Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillip’s riding, after she announced she was stepping down effective July 1. Nenshi told reporters Saturday that he wasn’t familiar with the city but would keep his mind open.

“I’m not that worried about it,” he said of not holding a seat in the legislature.

“Most citizens don’t know that the legislature actually doesn’t meet very often, they don’t sit very long, and I actually really believe that it’s going to be extremely important for the NDP caucus to be much more out in the community and communities.”

His fellow candidates had criticized Nenshi’s campaign for lacking policy depth.

One area, however, he was more clear about was potentially breaking with the federal party of the same name, saying the provincial party needed to broaden its supporter base to include supporters of all federal parties.

Currently, and as per the Alberta NDP constitution, a party membership automatically enrols a member in the federal NDP. That relationship is often highlighted by the governing UCP, characterizing it as the “Notley-Singh-Trudeau alliance.”

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Nenshi said Saturday that he intends to hear from members before the party pursues any potential breakup with its national counterpart.

“I certainly have an opinion on the matter, but ultimately, it is the choice of the members on what they want to do, and there’s no point in dilly-dallying about it.”

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also posted congratulations to Nenshi on social media.

“Together, we will continue to build the better world that Tommy Douglas dreamed of,” he said.

Notley announced her intention to step down as leader in January. So far, she has not said if she plans to stay on as an MLA.

mblack@postmedia.com

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