Poll could see Alberta Party take a seat in the legislature

Greg Clark, leader of the Alberta Party, is very close behind the PC's Gordon Dirks in the riding of Calgary-Elbow, according to a new poll.

The Alberta Party has never won a seat in the provincial legislature, but a new poll conducted during the current campaign is showing that’s coming very close to changing.

The poll, conducted by Mainstreet Technologies, says that the Alberta Party leader Greg Clark is in a statistical tie with the PC’s Gordon Dirks in the riding of Calgary-Elbow.

Dirks has 30 percent support, while Clark has 29 percent. The extra one percent is covered by the margin of error.

The results also show the NDP isn’t too far behind with 20 percent support and the three other parties make up the rest, with just seven percent undecided.

Greg Clark first ran for the Alberta Party in 2012, and assumed leadership of the party in the fall of 2013 after Glenn Taylor resigned shortly after the 2012 general election.

Clark says he is convinced he’s the only one that can defeat Dirks.

“I’m the only one who can beat Gordon Dirks in Calgary-Elbow. What we’ve seen is a lot of people who want something other than the PCs, something better than the PCs, who are getting behind our campaign.”

Meanwhile PC candidate Gordon Dirks says he is taking the competition with Clark very seriously, as seriously as he does with his other opponents.

“They put their names forward. I commend them for that and everybody is running their campaign, running as hard as they can. That’s what I’m doing, we’re putting forward a strong campaign with a balanced three-year-plan for the people of Calgary-Elbow to look at.”

397 people from Calgary-Elbow were surveyed for the poll in the election last fall, and the PC Party beat the Alberta Party by less than 800 votes, just over six percent.

Both parties put forward the same candidates now as they did for the by-election in October 2014.

The Alberta Party describes itself as a centrist and pragmatic political party.