As the fall session in the legislature comes to a close a new poll shows that support for the NDP government has fallen sharply since the end of the summer.

The survey from ThinkHQ takes a look at Alberta’s political landscape and was conducted between December 1 and December 6th from a sample size of 1230 Albertans.

The results show that the NDP now trail the Wildrose in province-wide popular vote but that the NDP still dominate in Edmonton and surrounding areas.

In Calgary, things are closer and a statistical three-way tie exists between the Wildrose, NDP and PC parties.

Marc Henry from ThinkHQ says this is the first legislative session for the NDP and they are coming out a bit bruised.

“They’re now trailing the Wildrose province-wide, in terms of popular vote, they’re still ahead in Edmonton by a fair margin but certainly in rural Alberta, small urban Alberta, they’re trailing the Wildrose by a significant margin,” said Henry. “In Calgary, it’s interesting, it’s actually a three-way race, you’ve got the Wildrose, the NDP and the Tories all statistically tied and really it’s that regional divide that sort of gives them their strength at this point, if the election were held tomorrow, they’d probably still form government simply because they’ve got so many votes in Edmonton.”

The survey asked Alberta respondents ‘If a provincial election were held tomorrow, which one of the following parties’ candidate would you, yourself, be most likely to support?

  • Wildrose         33 percent
  • NDP                29 percent
  • PC                  25 percent
  • Liberal              8 percent
  • Alberta             3 percent
  • Other               2 percent
    (Initial undecided 18 percent)

Henry says a combination of things has hurt the NDP and party members are facing a number of challenges going forward.

“The budget, the deficits, the climate change plan, which has got some mixed reviews particularly when it comes to new carbon tax. I think there’s a lot of anxiety right now in Alberta about the economy and where it’s going, and that’s going to be their challenge going forward, because all expectations are the economy’s not getting better any time soon and it’s probably going to get worse and when you’re a new government you typically don’t get blamed for the economy, nobody blames the NDP for $37 a barrel oil but as time progresses they will start to take on blame if the economy doesn’t improve and people can point to policies they have in place that are stifling recovery, whether it be taxes, whether it be the climate plan, whether it be royalties, this is going to be the challenge that they have to deal with going forward,” he said.

Henry says he’s not surprised the NDP’s numbers have dropped but he is surprised that the PC support is not going away and has grown slightly over the past few months.

To view the poll results, scroll the document below.