Lethbridge’s Rachael Harder has been re-elected in a landslide victory.
The Conservative incumbent was declared early Monday evening, capturing about 65% of the vote.
NDP candidate Shandi Bleiken and Liberal candidate Amy Bronson were neck and neck for second and third, sitting around 14% and 13% respectively.
Harder commented after the results came in that the Conservative’s priority will be to make sure they hold the Liberals to account. “Unfortunately the country didn’t go in the direction that we were hoping. Of course we wanted to form a Conservative government. Unfortunately that didn’t happen tonight. Hopefully we will have an opportunity to do that in a short period of time, but in the meantime Canadians have trusted us to be the official opposition.”
As for the rest of southern Alberta, all Conservative incumbent candidates were re-elected easily.
That includes John Barlow in Foothills, Glen Motz in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner and Martin Shields in Bow River. All three claimed around 80% of the votes in their respective ridings.
In fact, 33 of Alberta’s 34 seats were won by Conservative candidates. The lone exception is in Edmonton-Strathcona which was won by an NDP candidate.
Nationally, a Liberal minority government has been projected.
