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Even now, no one can quite believe it. A half dozen polls in the last couple of days all show the NDP leading in the Alberta election by an average margin of 15 points. The pollsters have taken to speaking outright of an NDP majority.

And yet a majority of those polled — the same sample group that has the Progressive Conservatives scraping 20 per cent support — still say they think the PCs will somehow find a way to win again. And not only them: the mayor of Calgary, leading provincial columnists, everyone’s hedging their bets. They have, after all, been burned before. As have we all.

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Still, there is reason to think this election will prove different from the last, when the Tories reversed a 10-point deficit in the campaign’s last three days. Then, the PCs faced but one serious opponent, the right-wing Wildrose Party; this time, their support has been eaten away at both ends. Then, the Wildrose contributed mightily to voter misgivings with ill-timed outbursts (see: “lake of fire”) from errant candidates; no such self-immolation seems in the offing this time. And then, the economy was strong, and the appetite for ejecting incumbents in favour of an untested opposition weaker; now, people may feel they have less to lose.