UCP leader Danielle Smith is seen at Crescent Heights High School during the forum on May 17, 2023. (CHAT News File Photo)

By Chris Brown

UCP Leader Danielle Smith re-elected in Brooks-Medicine Hat

May 29, 2023 | 10:15 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Danielle Smith has been re-elected by the voters of Brooks-Medicine Hat, CHAT News has projected.

Full Election Coverage: Alberta Votes 2023

With 19 of 25 polling stations in the riding reporting Smith has earned 7,275 votes, about 70 per cent. As with the byelection the NDP’s Gwendoline Dirk is in second with 2,407 votes (23 per cent) and former Brooks mayor Barry Morishita, leader of the Alberta Party, is once again third with 720 votes (seven per cent).

Dirk told supporters in downtown Medicine Hat that even though the NDP didn’t win the seat, they made an impact.

“The number of people that are excited about the NDP is greater than it’s ever been in this area and I know the work isn’t finished yet,” she said to rousing cheers. “We have started a movement and I don’t think we can stop. I don’t plan to stop.”

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Smith is in Calgary at a UCP event and has not yet spoken to supporters there. She did address supporters gathered in Medicine Hat via phone. She thanked them and said she is thinking of them event hough she’s not in Medicine Hat tonight.

In the November byelection Smith won 54.5 per cent of the vote to Dirk’s 26.7 and Morishita’s 16.5 per cent.

Michaela Frey of the UCP won the seat in 2019 with 61 per cent of the vote, ahead of the NDP’s Lynn MacMillan at 18 per cent. That was the first year of the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding. It was previously known as Medicine Hat but was redrawn for the 2019 election to create a more blended urban and rural riding that more evenly divided the city of Medicine Hat between it and Cypress-Medicine Hat.

In 2015, the last election when it was known as the Medicine Hat riding, the NDP’s Bob Wanner won with 38 per cent of the vote. He narrowly defeated Wildrose candidate Val Olsen who got 36 per cent of the vote.