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“It was horrible,” said Dan Rose, a voter in Edmonton, told the Edmonton Journal. “I can’t think of a worse, more negative, more caustic campaign in my time. It was just awful.”

Photo by Darren Makowichuk / Postmedia

The economy has long been top of mind in the province. Since 2016, when the bottom fell out of the international oil market, Alberta has been in a prolonged recession; recovery, economists say, has stalled coming into 2019, with unemployment hovering around seven per cent.

Kenney argued Notley’s government made a bad situation worse with higher taxes, more regulations and increases in minimum wage. Notley, in turn, said Kenney’s plan to freeze spending and pursue more private healthcare options would have a profound effect on students and patients.

Sarah Hoffman, the former NDP health minister who held onto her seat in Edmonton, had tears in her eyes as she told reporters she was excited, despite it not being the outcome they’d wanted. “Honestly, it’s just so nice to see all the people who had your back,” Hoffman said. “I keep thinking about how we had thousands of more volunteers on this campaign than we did on the last one.”

Photo by Jason Franson / The Canadian Press

Kenney’s victory sets up a long-anticipated fight with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government in Ottawa. In his time on Alberta’s opposition benches, Kenney seemed to direct as much criticism at Trudeau as at Notley. The primary point of friction has been the federal climate change plan. Kenney has vowed to make scrapping Alberta’s carbon tax his first order of business. That would lead to the federal carbon-pricing plan being imposed in Alberta, but Kenney has vowed that under his leadership Alberta will use the courts to challenge the federal plan’s constitutionality, the same approach taken by Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick.