EDMONTON—In the week since the election writ drop, the Alberta NDP has rolled out several attack ads against Jason Kenney and has re-upped websites that shine a spotlight on the United Conservative Party leader’s past in an effort to delegitimize him as a choice to be the province’s next premier.

But the negative campaigning, which highlights Kenney’s days as an anti-abortion campaigner who also worked to overturn LGBTQ spousal law in the United States, is a starkly different approach from the NDP’s positive tone in 2015, experts say — and it may cost them.

While much has been written about what Kenney’s past deeds might mean for today’s voters, some experts say the marked shift in tone by the NDP — which came to power in 2015 after a positive campaign emphasizing hope and change — could hurt them down the road.

“In 2015, what they were trying to do was present a positive alternative to two other parties that were seen as too conservative, too entitled, too ethically questionable,” Janet Brown, a pollster and political commentator based in Calgary, said.

But this time around, Brown said the Alberta NDP kicked off its campaign by questioning Kenney’s ethics and integrity as a leader head-on, an unlikely negative start to any election season.

“Typically in Alberta election campaigns and Canadian election campaigns, we don’t see (parties) taking the risk of going negative until they really have to,” Brown said. “It’s usually something campaigns see as a last resort.”

Meanwhile, the UCP has been focused on playing up the economic angst of the province, an approach that one expert says has resonated with Albertans who are still recovering from the crash of oil prices.

“Fighting an election on something other than the economy is a very bad strategy when Albertans are crying about jobs and are upset and there’s a sense of despair,” said David Taras, a political scientist at Mount Royal University.

In an interview with the Star, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said her party’s approach to campaigning is not an attempt to “smear” Kenney, but is rather an effort to uncover facts about the UCP leader that Notley believes are important for voters to know.

“I think issues around value choices and value beliefs that go to character are an important part of the conversation that we need to have,” Notley said. “I think that they matter as much as economy and jobs, and perhaps even more when economy and jobs are of concern.”

The incumbent party has focused on bringing to light Kenney’s past regarding same-sex legislation during his time as a student in San Francisco, as well as calling out UCP candidates who have stepped down since the writ drop over hateful comments on social media on issues like race and religion.

Taras said the day of the writ drop on March 19 was also a strategic choice for Notley, who did so at the height of news that the RCMP is investigating matters surrounding allegations of a “kamikaze campaign” spearheaded by Kenney during the UCP leadership race in 2017.

“It looked like high tide in terms of potential scandal that would, in fact, devour Kenney,” Taras said.

It’s a sharp turn from the Alberta NDP’s messaging in 2015, Taras said, when Notley campaigned exclusively on issues like education, health care, and the future of the province.

“In the last election, Notley portrayed herself as the protector of Alberta values ... as the dependable candidate,” Taras said, allowing the Jim Prentice campaign and the Progressive Conservatives to collapse under their own weight.

Negative attacks are a risky approach to campaigning, both Brown and Taras said, but Taras added they can be an effective strategy if there is truth or merit to what is being said about an opponent.

But Notley’s shift in messaging in the 2019 election campaign has not had a favourable outcome for the Alberta NDP so far, Taras said.

“I don’t think she’s made a dent,” Taras said. “The yardsticks haven’t moved since last weekend in terms of public opinion.”

Brown echoed those comments, adding the UCP has a commanding lead in the polls a week into the election campaign. “I don’t think a negative campaign in and of itself is going to put the NDP in the position where they can form government,” Brown said.

Notley said her different approach to campaigning this time around stems from her belief that the parties and their leaders in the last election weren’t as starkly different as they are in 2019’s vote. She said Prentice led a much more moderate, centrist version of the Progressive Conservative party.

“There’s a difference, I would say, in the conservative party we saw in 2015, and the organization that Mr. Kenney is leading now,” Notley said.

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But with the Alberta NDP still behind in the polls, Taras said he advises the party take a different approach in the next three weeks of the campaign. The throne speech was a highlight moment for the party, he added, where Notley touted her government’s enormous accomplishments, like cutting the province’s poverty rate in half.

“Instead of touting her own successes, what (Notley) is doing is trying to burn the bridge of trust to voters and to Kenney,” Taras said. Many people, he added, are unaware of those achievements.

Albertans head to the polls on April 16.

Nadine Yousif is a reporter/photographer for Star Edmonton. Follow her on twitter: @nadineyousif_

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