Calgary remains staunchly Conservative but voters possibly add more red to electoral map
Liberals were struggling to make a breakthrough in the Tory bastion of Calgary Monday night with the party's hopes of expanding their base of one seat in the city hanging in the balance.
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The best results for the Liberals among the 11 seats of Calgary Skyview, Confederation, McKnight and Centre was in the latter race with Liberal Lindsay Luhnau holding a slim edge over Conservative incumbent Greg McLean as of 9:30 p.m.
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'I was expecting really hard conversations, being yelled at but it's been a very heartening campaign,' said Luhnau, adding she met many people who committed to voting Liberal for the first time.
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'The organic growth of our volunteer contingent was amazing, not just the same faces again, I met a lot of new people which was a good sign.'
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Some of those new Liberal voters, she said, were those who once identified themselves with the Progressive Conservative Party which morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.
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Luhnau said Calgary voters are no different from others in Canada in being influenced by the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump and the arrival of former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.
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'That momentum was happening before the election — this isn't about me, it's about Carney,' said Luhnau.
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Conservative hopeful in Calgary Confederation, Jeremy Nixon, was trailing Liberal Corey Hogan while in Calgary McKnight, incumbent MP George Chahal was locked in a seesaw battle with Conservative Dalwinder Gill at press time, with the Tory was holding a slim lead.
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In Calgary Skyview, voting results were slow to materialize, though Conservative Amanpreet Gill was leading Grit hopeful Hafeez Malik.
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