'Voters were in a funny mood': Making sense of Calgary's 'change' election that wasn't

Many Calgarians woke up to the news that Mayor Naheed Nenshi had won another term as mayor, along with all 10 incumbent councillors who ran for re-election.

It wasn't the most predictable outcome in an election where "change" was a major theme. So how do you make sense of the results?

Marc Henry, a strategy consultant with ThinkHQPublic Affairs, said it was a combination of feelings that seemed to be driving Calgarians as they went to the polls.

"The voters were in a funny mood," he said.

"They weren't exactly furious but they weren't exactly happy, either. And it made some of these races very competitive."

• Nenshi re-elected as Calgary's mayor with more than 50% of the vote
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With advance voter turnout hitting record levels, many observers figured it meant voters were hungry for change, butindependent pollster Janet Brown said that's not always the case.

"A lot of people say high voter turnout points to change, but actually what high voter turnout points to is people who don't traditionally vote voting," she said.

"So it points to younger people coming out, new Canadians coming out and all of that would've fed into Nenshi's favour."

Brown also figured the trio of Mainstreet/Postmedia pollsthat incorrectly put challenger Bill Smith well ahead of Nenshi may have helped drive turnout for the incumbent mayor.

"When those polls came out, there was panic going through the Nenshi camp, and I remember talking to some of them and I said, 'Well, maybe the silver lining is: this will remove any apathy from your voting base,'" she said.

"They probably put Nenshi ahead."

'That's what democracy is all about'

JoeKrakauskassaid he wasn't too surprised to see the incumbent mayorvoted in for a third term, even if that's not the outcome he was personally looking for.

"I did vote," he said."I didn't get quite what I wanted but, you know, that's what democracy's all about."

Others out and about early Tuesday morning were more pleased by the election results.

Heather Watt said she'd like to see the city look at improving how elections are managed in the future, after problems with long lineups and some voting stations even running out of ballots temporarily.

Watt said she's happy to put the election behind her and see Calgary's newly elected officials get down to business.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what our new city council does," she said.

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