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Will the United Conservative Party defeat the Alberta NDP government in Tuesday’s provincial election? I remain confident they will.

Am I as confident as I was when the campaign began? Not quite.

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Alberta has essentially three electoral regions: Edmonton and area with 25 seats, Calgary with 24 seats and the ROTP (rest of the province) with 38. That’s a total of 87 seats, meaning 44 are needed for a majority.

Win any two of the three regions and you win government.

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For 44 years, the old Progressive Conservative dynasty held power by capturing Calgary and the ROTP. “Redmonton” went Liberal or NDP as often as not.

But in 2015, the NDP under Rachel Notley won a mid-sized majority by sweeping Edmonton and environs, taking 15 of Calgary’s seats and a smattering of seats in the ROTP.

The NDP did this because last time the long-in-the-tooth Tories had fallen out of favour with voters and the right-of-centre vote was split between the Tories and the Wildrose Party.