United Conservative Party candidate David Hanson has been elected to the legislature to represent the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency. Previously, he was the member for Lac-La-Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills, which was split into multiple new ridings when the electoral boundaries were redrawn.
"I'm very excited, not only for myself but for my entire campaign team and all the people who helped out and supported all the way through this 28 days," said Hanson, who according to unofficial, preliminary results from Elections Alberta received roughly 70 per cent of the popular vote in the riding.
New Democratic Party candidate Kari Whan received about 15 per cent of the vote, while Alberta Party candidate and former St. Paul mayor Glenn Andersen received about 10 per cent.
"We worked really hard, we knocked on just about 8,000 doors. We went to three political forums. We've done everything we can to get the message out and quite frankly I think the key issue that was out there was people didn't want to split the vote, and that was from one end of the province to the other," said Andersen, as votes were still being counted, Tuesday night.
Provincially, the UCP is predicted to form a majority government with Jason Kenney as premier and Rachel Notley leading the NDP as the official opposition. Although the Alberta Party has garnered about 10 per cent of the vote province-wide, they are not predicted to win any seats based on the preliminary results.
"I think we've definitely woken up Albertans and they've realized how important politics is and party policy and how it affects their daily lives. We've definitely seen that in the results with the advanced polls, with the number of people that came out and the numbers tonight, definitely a swing towards UCP, and we need to get to work," said Hanson.
Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock
In the Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock area, which includes communities such as Mallaig, St. Vincent, Ashmont, St. Lina, Boscombe, Vilna, and more, another UCP candidate was elected as MLA.
Glenn Van dijken had 69 per cent of the vote, with 92 out of 98 of the polls reporting, Tuesday night at 10:30 p.m.
Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville
In the Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville constituency, UCP candidate Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk had 52 per cent of the vote, as of 10:30 p.m., with 87 out of 96 polls reporting. The area includes the communities of Two Hills and Myrnam.