'It's not great': Alberta independence movement takes hit in Olds byelection
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'It's not great,' he tweeted shortly before midnight, as the the last of the results trickled in from Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills.
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The rural Alberta riding, one of three up for grabs in Monday's provincial byelection, was closely watched for a potential separatist breakthrough.
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In the end, the two pro-independence candidates on the ballot took home a respectable 19 per cent of the vote, but fell short of both major parties.
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According to preliminary results, the UCP's Tara Sawyer won easily with 61 per cent of the vote with NDP candidate Bev Toews taking home 20 per cent, edging out Republican Party of Alberta leader Cam Davies by 365 votes.
Davies told the National Post that the third-place finish won't break his spirits.
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'I see a lot of talking heads and pundits and pollsters that are all quite vigorously calling for us to pack it in. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news for them, but we're just getting started,' said Davies.
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Davies, who favours Alberta becoming an independent constitutional republic, concedes that the Alberta Republicans' name and red colours may have tethered it too closely to U.S. President Donald Trump.
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'(The branding) certainly did cause questions about what we were,' said Davies
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'Did it leave an opening for others to spread misinformation? Absolutely it did.'
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Davies pushed back against assertions throughout the campaign that he wants Alberta to enter the U.S. as the 51st state, a claim he flatly denies.
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Davies, who lives in south Red Deer, said he'll be running in the next provincial election but hasn't decided which riding he'll run in.
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Wildrose Loyalty Coalition candidate Bill Tufts finished well behind the top three with just over one per cent of the vote.
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Most of the riding overlaps with Olds-Didsbury, where pro-independence candidate Gordon Kesler won a surprise byelection victory in 1982, becoming the only separatist to ever sit in Alberta's legislature.
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Jeff Rath, a lawyer with the pro-independence Alberta Prosperity Project, said that the easy UCP win was a testament to party leader and Premier Danielle Smith's continued popularity with the party's grassroots.
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