Farmers will overwhelmingly vote for Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservative party on March 12, if a survey conducted for The Western Producer is correct.
A survey of 334 farmers by CV Marketing Research found that 56.6 percent would vote for the PCs if the election had been held between Feb. 21 and 28, when the survey was conducted. Only 5.7 percent would vote Liberal. The NDP, never a strong contender in rural Alberta, would actually have received fewer votes than the Canadian Alliance, which is not a provincial party and has no candidates on the ballot. Only 2.1 percent of farmers said they were planning to vote NDP.
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Results of the survey are considered accurate within 4.9 percent, 19 times out of 20. Almost one-third of farmers were still undecided, but more were leaning to the PCs than to the other parties combined.
Among decided farmer voters, the results are a steamroller for Klein: 82.5 percent say they will vote for the PCs.
The huge support for Klein’s government among farmers was considered remarkable even for veteran pollster Eric Vanderham, president of CV Marketing Research.
“That’s very conclusive,” he said.
“Clearly Klein has done a lot of right things and people are rewarding him for it.”
He said opposition parties appear to face an insurmountable obstacle.
“Usually there’s some sign of support during an election for the opposition …,” said Vanderham.
This survey contacted only farmers, so it is not an attempt to show how the average Albertan will vote.
The survey also only spoke to people who described themselves as “the persons most involved in farming or ranching” in a family, a proviso that would tend to exclude farm women.
But Vanderham said most married couples vote similarly, so there would not likely be much difference if more women had been included.
Vanderham said he has seen lopsided support for political parties in other elections, but “not quite this strong.”
