The 2008 Alberta general election was held on March 3, 2008, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. It was expected to be called early because the governing Progressive Conservatives held a leadership election on December 2, 2006, in which Ed Stelmach was elected to replace Ralph Klein as party leader and Premier. The election was called when Stelmach formally advised Lieutenant Governor Norman Kwong to dissolve the Legislature, which happened on February 4, 2008. With 53% of the popular vote, the Progressive Conservatives won a decisive majority over the Liberal and other parties, despite early suggestions of a closer race. The 2008 election had the lowest voter turnout in the province's history, with only 40.59% of eligible voters casting a ballot.

Results

The Progressive Conservatives increased their majority at the expense of all other parties in the legislature. The Tories also increased their share of the popular vote, and even though their share of the vote was still significantly less than it was in 2001, they managed to win just two fewer seats than they won in that election. This was largely a result of their continued widespread support in rural areas, as well as divided opposition support in Calgary and Edmonton. The Conservative gains came mostly in and around Edmonton, where the party recorded its best results since 1982. The Liberals held on to official opposition status but sustained a net loss of seven seats. Bucking historic trends, the party was reduced to only three seats in Edmonton, but was able to win five seats in Calgary (a net gain of one seat and the largest total won by that party in that city in the past 50 years). The Liberals also held their existing seat in Lethbridge to win a total of nine seats. The other parties that were represented in the legislature also suffered losses on election night. The New Democrats lost two of their four Edmonton seats, and the Wildrose Alliance Party was shut out of the legislature as their leader Paul Hinman was narrowly defeated in his own constituency of Cardston-Taber-Warner. For the first time in history, a majority of the Liberal caucus were from Calgary and the combined number of Liberal and NDP MLAs from Edmonton did not exceed the number of those two parties' MLAs from Calgary.

Summary

!rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="text-align:left;" |Party !rowspan="2" style="text-align:left;" |Party leader !rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |Number of candidates !colspan="4" style="text-align:center;" |Seats !colspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |Popular vote !407 ||83 ||83 ||83 ||- ||950,363 ||100.00 || Notes:

Vote and seat summaries

Policy and other major announcements

Alberta Liberal Party

Cost: Net costs are zero as a result of re-allocating existing dollars and increased royalty revenues.

New Democratic Party of Alberta

Cost: $477 million surplus, based on increased royalty rates, bitumen royalty premium and reverse corporate tax cuts.

Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta

Cost: Total commitments represent 4.2 per cent of the budget for 2008–09 or $1.5 billion.

Wildrose Alliance Party of Alberta

Costs: Cost of promises not released.

Alberta Greens

Leader's statement

Results by region

1 "Edmonton" corresponds to only the city of Edmonton. (Only the ridings whose names begin with "Edmonton".) The four suburban ridings around the city as listed below are grouped with central Alberta in this table.

Opinion polls

Target ridings

The following is a list of ridings that were narrowly lost by the indicated party in the 2004 election. For instance, under the Liberal column are the nine seats in which they came closest to winning but did not. Listed is the name of the riding, followed by the party which was victorious (in parentheses) and the margin, in terms of percentage of the vote, by which the party lost. These ridings were likely targeted by the specified party because the party lost them by a very slim margin in the 2004 election. Up to ten are shown, with a maximum margin of victory of 15%.

• Indicates incumbent not running again.

MLAs not running again

Liberal NDP Progressive Conservative

Timeline

Nominated candidates

Names in bold indicate party leaders and cabinet ministers.

Northern Alberta

7,484 (67.99%) 1,379 (12.53%) 1,225 (11.13%) 517 (4.69%) 403 (3.66%) 8,312 (70.26%) 1,804 (15.25%) 927 (7.83%) 479 (4.05%) 309 (2.61%) 4,437 (75.54%) 698 (11.88%) 389 (6.62%) 350 (5.96%) 4,147 (51.99%) 288 (3.61%) 1,202 (15.07%) 2,339 (29.33%) 4,519 (63.41%) 1,758 (24.67%) 550 (7.72%) 300 (4.21%) 4,769 (59.44%) 1,089 (13.57%) 832 (10.37%) 1,049 (13.07%) 285 (3.55%) 5,145 (66.70%) 1,304 (16.90%) 829 (10.75%) 436 (5.65%) 6,527 (71.28%) 1,627 (17.77%) 1,003 (10.95%) 3,384 (65.18%) 1,109 (21.36%) 426 (8.20%) 273 (5.26%) 3,265 (64.63%) 1,248 (24.70%) 539 (10.67%)

Western and Central Alberta

4,727 (49.34%) 2,753 (28.74%) 575 (6.00%) 1,353 (14.12%) 172 (1.80%) 5,931 (58.74%) 846 (8.38%) 390 (3.86%) 1,053 (10.43%) 1,877 (18.59%) 6,916 (57.41%) 2,200 (18.26%) 196 (1.63%) 1,797 (14.92%) 937 (7.78%) 6,967 (62.82%) 1,539 (13.88%) 702 (6.33%) 1,215 (10.96%) 545 (4.91%) 122 (1.10%) 7,837 (64.06%) 1,038 (8.49%) 268 (2.19%) 2,572 (21.03%) 518 (4.23%) 4,715 (57.94%) 1,770 (21.75%) 560 (6.88%) 630 (7.74%) 463 (5.69%) 7,139 (56.18%) 3,414 (26.86%) 597 (4.70%) 949 (7.47%) 609 (4.79%) 6,188 (62.30%) 849 (8.55%) 279 (2.81%) 1,156 (11.64%) 699 (7.03%) 643 (6.47%) Bruce Hutton (SPA) 119 (1.20%) 8,467 (63.38%) 2,552 (19.10%) 976 (7.31%) 793 (5.94%) 571 (4.27%) 4,206 (53.83%) 1,932 (24.72%) 1,054 (13.49%) 326 (4.17%) 296 (3.79%) 6,019 (60.60%) 1,106 (11.14%) 661 (6.65%) 2,146 (21.61%)

East Central Alberta

7,968 (78.57%) 1,260 (12.42%) 431 (4.25%) 483 (4.76%) 6,986 (68.90%) 1,463 (14.43%) 276 (2.72%) 1,062 (10.47%) 353 (3.48%) 11,169 (78.13%) 1,343 (9.39%) 1,233 (8.63%) 551 (3.85%) 8,202 (58.18%) 1,200 (8.51%) 560 (3.97%) 911 (6.46%) 3,226 (22.88%) 9,045 (64.91%) 2,329 (16.72%) 1,057 (7.59%) 1,008 (7.23%) 495 (3.55%) 7,013 (80.75%) 826 (9.51%) 482 (5.55%) 364 (4.19%) 7,726 (65.89%) 1,646 (14.04%) 1,078 (9.19%) 818 (6.98%) 458 (3.90%)

Central Edmonton

4,182 (39.63%) 1,996 (18.92%) 3,845 (36.44%) 289 (2.74%) 183 (1.73%) 57 (0.54%) 3,291 (29.36%) 5,042 (44.98%) 2,163 (19.30%) 200 (1.78%) 472 (4.21%) 42 (0.37%) 4,604 (39.90%) 4,508 (39.07%) 1,743 (15.11%) 275 (2.38%) 408 (3.54%) 5,261 (37.61%) 6,279 (44.89%) 1,923 (13.75%) 525 (3.75%) 2,978 (31.92%) 1,132 (12.13%) 4,754 (50.95%) 245 (2.63%) 221 (2.37%) 6,857 (50.78%) 4,058 (30.05%) 1,822 (13.49%) 726 (5.38%) 41 (0.30%) 4,752 (43.87%) 3,996 (36.89%) 1,474 (13.61%) 321 (2.95%) 289 (2.68%) 5,171 (35.03%) 7,471 (50.61%) 1,284 (8.70%) 329 (2.23%) 506 (3.43%) 5,225 (42.49%) 5,167 (42.02%) 1,178 (9.58%) 379 (3.08%) 348 (2.83%) 3,031 (25.50%) 2,452 (20.63%) 5,862 (49.32%) 540 (4.55%)

Suburban Edmonton and environs

4,557 (40.86%) 1,839 (16.49%) 4,356 (39.05%) 402 (3.60%) 7,159 (51.55%) 5,090 (36.65%) 1,341 (9.66%) 297 (2.14%) 4,577 (45.71%) 3,895 (38.89%) 1,301 (12.99%) 241 (2.41%) 4,581 (41.90%) 3,592 (32.86%) 1,891 (17.30%) 471 (4.31%) 335 (3.06%) 62 (0.57%) 4,107 (35.79%) 2,260 (19.70%) 2,307 (20.11%) 289 (2.52%) 235 (2.05%) 2,275 (19.83%) 7,173 (48.94%) 5,947 (40.57%) 924 (6.30%) 272 (1.86%) 342 (2.33%) 6,174 (54.83%) 3,423 (30.40%) 1,010 (8.97%) 306 (2.72%) 347 (3.08%) 12,054 (58.47%) 6,997 (33.94%) 1,023 (4.96%) 543 (2.63%) 9,312 (63.14%) 3,843 (26.06%) 904 (6.13%) 689 (4.67%) 9,369 (60.83%) 4,528 (29.40%) 960 (6.23%) 545 (3.54%) 8,403 (54.09%) 5,598 (36.03%) 959 (6.17%) 576 (3.71%) 9,951 (66.19%) 2,995 (19.92%) 911 (6.06%) 763 (5.07%) 415 (2.76%)

Southern Alberta

9,374 (62.58%) 1,973 (13.17%) 609 (4.07%) 2,362 (15.77%) 660 (4.41%) 4,374 (46.02%) 436 (4.59%) 190 (2.00%) 4,325 (45.50%) 180 (1.89%) 5,640 (63.34%) 2,023 (22.72%) 347 (3.90%) 679 (7.63%) 215 (2.41%) 7,715 (65.11%) 1,647 (13.90%) 391 (3.30%) 1,405 (11.86%) 691 (5.83%) 4,715 (39.21%) 5,582 (46.42%) 687 (5.71%) 748 (6.22%) 292 (2.44%) 5,002 (43.68%) 4,022 (35.13%) 1,179 (10.30%) 855 (7.47%) 392 (3.42%) 5,150 (58.06%) 1,080 (12.18%) 322 (3.63%) 2,051 (23.12%) 267 (3.01%) 6,037 (64.18%) 1,534 (16.31%) 476 (5.06%) 988 (10.50%) 371 (3.95%) 5,388 (51.18%) 3,625 (34.43%) 484 (4.60%) 746 (7.08%) 285 (2.71%) 7,623 (74.55%) 991 (9.69%) 313 (3.06%) 935 (9.14%) 362 (3.55%)

Suburban Calgary

6,687 (45.16%) 5,173 (34.93%) 507 (3.42%) 1,425 (9.62%) 845 (5.71%) 171 (1.16%) 4,004 (56.82%) 1,567 (22.24%) 476 (6.75%) 605 (8.59%) 395 (5.60%) 6,088 (48.20%) 4,909 (38.86%) 251 (1.99%) 972 (7.70%) 411 (3.25%) 4,123 (49.81%) 1,770 (21.39%) 1,178 (14.23%) 715 (8.64%) 491 (5.93%) 6,968 (54.23%) 3,586 (27.91%) 366 (2.84%) 1,366 (10.63%) 564 (4.39%) 7,190 (52.51%) 3,926 (28.68%) 336 (2.45%) 1,620 (11.83%) 520 (3.80%) 100 (0.73%) 6,247 (48.40%) 4,048 (31.36%) 426 (3.30%) 1,609 (12.46%) 578 (4.48%) 4,161 (43.16%) 4,279 (44.38%) 275 (2.85%) 542 (5.62%) 385 (3.99%) 2,627 (34.45%) 1,396 (18.31%) 512 (6.71%) 818 (10.73%) 262 (3.44%) 2,010 (26.36%) 8,415 (46,21%) 5,552 (30.49%) 637 (3.50%) 2,703 (14.85%) 902 (4.95%) 7,010 (58.12%) 2,958 (24.53%) 334 (2.77%) 1,268 (10.51%) 491 (4.07%_ 8,428 (47.97%) 5,693 (32.41%) 401 (2.28%) 2,273 (12.94%) 773 (4.40%)

Central Calgary

3,646 (38.85%) 4,583 (48.83%) 387 (4.12%) 611 (6.51%) 158 (1.69%) 4,552 (37.27%) 5,564 (45.56%) 531 (4.35%) 670 (5.49%) 896 (7.34%) 4,583 (53.85%) 2,433 (28.59%) 425 (4.99%) 681 (8.00%) 333 (3.91%) 55 (0.66%) 5,415 (43.61%) 3,289 (26.49%) 447 (3.60%) 676 (5.44%) 582 (4.69%) 2,008 (16.17%) 6,130 (42.08%) 5,711 (39.20%) 290 (1.99%) 963 (6.61%) 526 (3.61%) 948 (6.51%) 6,884 (52.30%) 4,038 (30.68%) 423 (3.22%) 1,261 (9.58%) 556 (4.22%) 6,436 (50.67%) 4,213 (33.17%) 477 (3.76%) 1,025 (8.07%) 550 (4.33%) 4,252 (30.91%) 7,086 (51.51%) 661 (4.81%) 892 (6.48%) 865 (6.29%) 4,281 (38.22%) 3,573 (31.99%) 1,381 (12.36%) 976 (8.74%) 732 (6.55%) 228 (2.04%) 4,586 (49.24%) 2,761 (29.65%) 388 (4.17%) 954 (10.24%) 624 (6.70%) 5,353 (36.69%) 6,907 (47.33%) 530 (3.63%) 1,043 (7.15%) 758 (5.19%)