NDP Wins Calgary-Shaw By-Election in Longtime Conservative Seat
The Alberta NDP declared victory in the Calgary-Shaw by-election on Monday, September 14, 2026, based on unofficial results The Globe and Mail.
As of late Monday, NDP candidate Kyle Campbell had 7,461 votes. United Conservative Party candidate Mike Derry had 6,879 votes. The gap was 582 votes CBC. Progressive Tory candidate Kyle Joseph was third with 978 votes. Liberal John Roggeveen had 602 votes. Independent Rolly Ashdown had 82 votes. Five candidates ran in total.
Calgary-Shaw is a south Calgary constituency created in 1986. It has usually voted Conservative. The NDP has won it only once before, in 2015, during the orange wave that made Rachel Notley premier. A by-election, a vote in one constituency outside a general election, was called after former United Conservative cabinet minister Rebecca Schulz resigned in May. Schulz was environment minister from 2023 to the end of 2025.
Elections Alberta ran the vote under standard provincial rules. Nominations closed at 2:00 p.m. on August 27, 2026 Elections Alberta. Advance voting ran Tuesday, September 8 to Saturday, September 12. Voters had to show identification and proof of their current home address. Unofficial results were posted to results.elections.ab.ca after polls closed. The official count is set for Sept. 24.
Premier Danielle Smith congratulated Campbell on Monday. She said her government would work with him for his constituency. Campbell, a fourth-generation Albertan, was nominated as the Alberta NDP candidate in June Alberta NDP.
The broader context here is familiar to people who follow campaigns. By-elections reward organisation, finding supporters and getting them to vote, more than party brand. A win in a seat the other party has held for decades does not predict the next general election. It can lift morale and help with volunteers and donations in the months ahead, and it prompts local campaign teams on both sides to reconsider who votes and why.
Looking at what this means for the Legislature, caution is needed until Sept. 24. A call based on unofficial numbers is not yet a certified result, and a margin of several hundred votes puts focus on the official count and special ballots, votes cast under special rules such as mail-in ballots. For strategists in both large parties, the lessons will be in the poll-by-poll results: where the NDP was most efficient in south Calgary, how UCP support compared with past results in the same polls, and whether the Progressive Tory and Liberal candidates changed the final math or simply gave unhappy voters another option.
