On Tuesday night, the near-unthinkable happened here in Canada when the New Democratic Party (NDP) stormed to a commanding majority in Alberta's provincial elections. To explain this in American terms: Imagine that Texas just overwhelmingly elected a legislature dominated by a left-wing party that opposes major oil pipeline projects; promises a core review of the obligations that oil and gas companies have to their communities; and favors fundamentally rethinking the tax structure toward large-scale redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Oh, and it's going to insist that climate change is real, man-made, and should bear on any policy that involves burning more hydrocarbons.

Even this comparison is tough, because Americans don't support a mainstream party as unabashedly left-wing as the NDP. (The Greens would be a decent analog. Or a breakaway party of Bernie Sanders acolytes.) Publicly NDP members say they're “social democrats,” but most of its members, like Canadians at large, use that term interchangeably with “socialist.” Alberta has traditionally been unyielding soil for the NDP. The province is defined by its vast fossil fuel reserves, comparable to Saudi Arabia in its oil underfoot. Once oil was discovered there in the 1940s, actual Texans rushed up to establish companies and, concomitantly, a pro-capital, pro-religion, pro-firearm style of politics that the rest of Canada regards as distinctly American. For 44 years before Tuesday night, a span of twelve straight elections, Alberta has been run by the Conservative Party, a decent analogue to the Republican Party. Before that was nearly 40 years of even more conservative rule under the Social Credit Party.

The Conservatives' strength in Alberta has been in part responsible for the past eight years of Stephen Harper's reign as prime minister. Harper, a Calgary politician in the thrall of the oil industry, has leveraged the economic boom of the oil-rich province to justify all manner of ugly national economic, social, and environmental policies geared toward oil development. Even as recent polls suggested the Alberta NDP might win a majority for the first time in the province’s history, no one was prepared for a jolt of this magnitude. Even the 53 newly elected Members of the Legislative Assembly were shocked by the outcome. Commentators rushed to Twitter to make sense of the fantastic.

Imagine if a political party made up of @chrislhayes, Bernie Saunders & Elizabeth Warren swept into power in Texas & Mississippi. — heerjeet

Albertans are going to be rich socialists. Which is the best kind of socialist to be and also the best kind of rich person to be. — stephenmarche

Lots to absorb about #ABvote, but biggest lessons are old ones: long in the tooth, out of touch governments get smoked, and leaders matter. — gmbutts

Far from a majority, the NDP hasn't even been a factor in any part of Alberta outside of the capital city, Edmonton. I should know: In 2012 I ran as the NDP's candidate for Parliament in a federal by-election held in downtown Calgary, the largest city in Alberta and home to the corporate headquarters for many of the world’s largest and most profitable oil and gas firms. New Democrats would refer to this part of the country as the “belly of the beast.”

When the leader of the federal NDP, Tom Mulcair, arrived to help us campaign, Calgarians did not receive him kindly. As the leader of the Official Opposition in Canada, Tom has to hold Harper to account in the House of Commons. Canadians recognize and respect him from coast to coast—with the exception of much of Alberta. Once, as Tom and I left campaign headquarters to glad-hand passersby, we noticed a guy wearing steel-toed boots and carrying a yellow hard hat under his arm. Almost anywhere in Canada, we would mark this guy, on his way to work, as a likely NDP voter. Tom approached him with a well-practiced politician's greeting: “Hi, there! I’m Tom Mulcair and I want you to meet my friend Dan. He is …”