FIRST READING: Stunning byelection upset may portend Alberta conservative fracture - National Post
Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi and Kyle Campbell, newly elected NDP candidate for Calgary-Shaw, speak at a press conference in Calgary on Tuesday, September 15, 2026. Campbell won in the riding by-election held on Monday. The pair are displayed in a photographer's view finder. Photo by Jim Wells/PostmediaArticle contentFirst Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.
Ever since its creation in 1986, the suburban riding of Calgary-Shaw has voted for conservatives. In the year of the provincial riding’s creation, the conservative candidate won by 61.5 per cent. Nearly 40 years later, in the last general election, the conservative candidate won by a comparable 56.3 per cent.
Even the teenagers in Calgary-Shaw vote conservative. On occasions when the riding’s two high schools have participated in straw polls during provincial elections, the results have always been blowout Progressive Conservative victories.
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Until this week, the only time Calgary-Shaw hasn’t gone for a conservative was due to a wild anomaly in 2015. That election, 30.7 per cent of the riding voted for the Progressive Conservatives and 30.4 per cent voted for the Wildrose Party, thus allowing NDP candidate Graham Sucha to slip into power with a vote share of just 31.27 per cent (he’d lose the riding by 40 points after just one term).
But with the Alberta NDP on Monday clinching a decisive byelection victory that nobody saw coming, it may represent the first material sign of a conservative bloc that is being fractured by the question of Alberta independence.
“The NDP has won Calgary Shaw, one of the most conservative big city ridings in this country. Every single UCP riding in Calgary is now at risk,” was the immediate reaction of longtime Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid.
Early results show that NDP candidate Kyle Campbell won the riding by 46 per cent, the party’s best result in Calgary-Shaw. NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called it a “political earthquake,” and described Campbell’s headquarters as being filled with incredulous cries of “oh my God we won!”
