The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - September 19, 2025


Calgary Polling Update： Farkas is the Liberals Trojan Horse


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

171.94829

Word Count

3,214

Sentence Count

186

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

10


Summary

Wyatt Claypool is back on the whiteboard to talk about the current polls in the Calgary mayoral race and why Jeremy Farkas is the only candidate with a chance of beating Mayor Naheed Nenshi in the race.


Transcript

00:00:00.080 Ahoy everyone, Wyatt Claypool here and we are back on the whiteboard today to talk about the Calgary mayoral election and how the mayor candidates are currently polling between each other.
00:00:13.400 Now, I will say up front that municipal polling is a little bit more finicky than provincial or federal because oftentimes you're working with personalities and you're not really working with parties.
00:00:26.100 While yes, there are two parties or technically three parties and one just on the council level competing in this election, it's sort of a half-baked concept at the moment within Calgary.
00:00:38.680 The government had just basically made it so that you can start a party this last year and they've only really rolled it out in Edmonton and Calgary and that is it.
00:00:49.200 And so in this election you have Communities First, which is the more conservative party, there's a Better Calgary party, which is also a conservative party, but they don't have a mayoral candidate, and then there is the Calgary party, which is like the left-wing union progressive front group party.
00:01:06.180 But I want to focus mainly today just on the mayor's race, the council stuff, that's getting way too small time.
00:01:14.160 I will be putting out an endorsement list for Calgary of mayor, councillor, as well as school board trustees.
00:01:21.720 Obviously, the councillors are really hard for me to fill in all at once.
00:01:25.480 But obviously, and full disclosure, I am endorsing Sonia Sharp for mayor.
00:01:30.240 I do not work for her, I do not get paid by her, and in fact, I'll probably end up donating to her campaign.
00:01:36.500 By the way, guys, if you live in Calgary, I would encourage you to get a Sonia Sharp sign, because we have to not just keep out people like Mayor Jody Gondek, currently in third place, but we need to keep out Jeremy Farkas.
00:01:49.180 This guy back in 2021 was pretty good, a more sort of socially liberal libertarian who cared about lowering taxes and cutting wasteful spending.
00:02:00.240 Well, this is what his campaign team looks like in the year 2025.
00:02:06.120 The man has gone full progressive.
00:02:09.260 When your two managers, and those are the managers standing right next to him, when your two managers are still wearing masks 24-7, one of them has this giant HEPA filter thing,
00:02:20.420 I was at the debate and I saw him.
00:02:22.460 This isn't an old photo.
00:02:23.660 He's still doing it.
00:02:25.340 This is telling about the crowd that Farkas is hanging out with now.
00:02:29.460 It's not just, oh, that's just their personal decisions.
00:02:32.500 When you do stuff like that, you are signaling a very left-wing sort of politics.
00:02:37.460 I've looked through the social media for the woman on Jeremy's right.
00:02:41.440 Yeah, it's very left-wing.
00:02:44.260 You couldn't put it anywhere else.
00:02:45.540 I think that Jeremy Farkas' brain broke after he didn't win the mayor's race in 21,
00:02:50.800 and now he is trying to become like Nenshi and Gondek, because he's like, well, they win, and I want to win, so I need to do that.
00:02:59.020 I need to basically mold myself into a winning mayoral candidate.
00:03:04.140 And at the moment, he is technically winning.
00:03:06.840 He has 31% in this Juno News poll that he and Bextie and his team had commissioned.
00:03:14.540 So Farkas is currently at 31%, Sonia Sharp, 16.5%, Jody Gondek, 13.5%, Davison, 8.5%, and Brian Thiessen, 5.5%.
00:03:26.560 Thiessen is the candidate for the Calgary party.
00:03:29.340 Davison is an independent.
00:03:30.960 Gondek's an independent.
00:03:32.260 Sharp is running with communities first.
00:03:34.060 And Farkas is an independent.
00:03:37.180 But I actually don't even really like calling people independents or a party candidate,
00:03:42.600 because, well, Farkas is basically owned by federal liberals.
00:03:47.260 He is surrounded by federal liberals and Alberta NDP supporters on his campaign.
00:03:53.920 In fact, in this photo, I believe the guy calls himself a conservative,
00:03:57.500 but the guy at the front left of the photo is a pro-blanket rezoning advocate.
00:04:03.000 I have debated with him.
00:04:04.540 His name is Alex McCall.
00:04:06.300 And yeah, this is the people that are supporting Jeremy Farkas.
00:04:11.440 He is not the same guy that he was back in 2021.
00:04:14.760 He is a very, very different character now.
00:04:17.420 It's like how even after losing in 21, Aaron O'Toole, who was already very liberal,
00:04:22.400 has become a full-on borderline liberal supporter these days.
00:04:25.560 So yeah, what we're seeing here is really that Farkas and Gondek, Gondek is dead in the water.
00:04:32.460 If you are 13% in a poll these days as the current mayor, you are dead.
00:04:37.900 And we are going to be talking about the Leger poll in just a little bit here,
00:04:41.640 which will take a little bit more nuance in because the poll wasn't really delivered properly.
00:04:46.040 But overall, when you're not doing very well and everyone knows who you are,
00:04:50.600 you can't just say, well, there's undecided people.
00:04:52.380 Undecided people know who you are, and they're not coming over for a reason.
00:04:56.600 Even Farkas at 31% in this poll that had 20% undecided,
00:05:01.040 I don't think Farkas is actually going to be moving up anymore
00:05:04.680 unless Gondek people realize that they need to vote for Farkas
00:05:08.760 if they want to keep the left winger in the mayor's office.
00:05:12.960 Sharp has actually been on the rise,
00:05:14.760 and somebody who has been falling over time is Jeff Davison.
00:05:18.220 There are very few places where I actually buy into the idea that vote splitting is real.
00:05:24.500 Even in municipal politics, oftentimes when the progressive wins
00:05:28.100 and there was like five conservatives who lost,
00:05:30.220 it's because you had one dedicated progressive,
00:05:32.860 and you had five guys who were barely trying.
00:05:35.240 It wasn't that they were splitting each other's votes.
00:05:37.200 Each other's voters didn't even know the other one was running
00:05:39.540 because none of them actually hit all the doors.
00:05:41.200 But what we have is Davison, who ran for mayor last time
00:05:46.320 and got 12.9% of the vote in 2021,
00:05:51.640 is running again and is currently serving us up an 8.5% result in this poll.
00:05:58.560 And other polls have not been better.
00:06:00.280 He's even lower in the legé,
00:06:02.280 and even if I correct for urban and suburban voters,
00:06:05.440 it's not looking good.
00:06:07.060 This guy, his campaign team, has been harassing me for no reason.
00:06:13.840 Online, chirping me in person.
00:06:17.100 They're those childish people on the planet.
00:06:18.860 And Davison, frankly, is running an incompetent campaign,
00:06:21.880 and I'm using this visual of him feeding a cupcake
00:06:24.660 to one of his organizers, Brett Pierce,
00:06:26.940 as being kind of representative of the campaign.
00:06:30.760 The man wants to be mayor like Jeremy Farkas,
00:06:34.940 but he isn't even sleazy enough to ally himself
00:06:37.700 with people who can get him there.
00:06:39.520 And so now his campaign's just completely disorganized,
00:06:42.860 just trying to find other...
00:06:44.940 Like, they're getting the Alberta...
00:06:45.940 A Better Calgary Party to lit drop for him,
00:06:48.620 which is funny because the Alberta...
00:06:50.140 The Better Calgary Party asked him
00:06:52.860 if he would be their mayor candidate,
00:06:55.340 and he rejected them.
00:06:56.840 He rejected them, and they are still handing out his literature,
00:07:00.420 which I don't know who that makes look more pathetic.
00:07:03.080 A Better Calgary Party or Jeff Davison.
00:07:06.340 Jeff Davison, who is scared of all risks,
00:07:08.980 so he doesn't want to associate with anyone,
00:07:10.500 but he'll still let them hand out his literature.
00:07:13.880 But yeah, Thiessen, I think he's actually going to be doing better
00:07:17.100 than 5.5% because the Calgary Party is running candidates
00:07:21.540 in all 14 wards in Calgary,
00:07:24.480 whereas Communities First, I believe, is running 9 or 10,
00:07:27.660 and then they're sort of staying out of the way
00:07:29.800 of certain independent candidates that they like
00:07:32.040 in some of the other wards.
00:07:33.740 And so I think Thiessen is going to do better
00:07:36.360 just because the marketing is going to be there
00:07:38.580 because they are going to be advertising him
00:07:40.500 in every single ward of the city
00:07:42.920 with their local candidates.
00:07:44.420 So I do think he is going to be doing better over time.
00:07:48.240 But I want to show you...
00:07:50.220 I'm going to cut over to...
00:07:51.980 Actually, we can probably just look at the graphics
00:07:53.940 on the Juno News website.
00:07:56.300 There's no point in me racing everything
00:07:58.040 just to show you this.
00:07:59.460 But Keehan did a really good job
00:08:01.880 when he was commissioning this poll
00:08:03.060 because he shows us the general numbers
00:08:05.780 for each of the candidates,
00:08:06.760 and then they show how would federal conservative voters vote.
00:08:11.980 And that's where it tightens up
00:08:13.240 between Farkas and Sharp.
00:08:15.320 Now, this is all a consequence of the fact
00:08:18.300 that a lot of people who voted for Farkas in 2021
00:08:21.780 are conservatives.
00:08:23.560 But Farkas isn't a conservative anymore,
00:08:26.060 but a lot of people are still sticking around.
00:08:28.460 But that's where the polls tighten up
00:08:30.760 to 39.4 Farkas, Sharp 22.5, Davison 11.6,
00:08:35.920 which makes sense because Davison is more conservative,
00:08:39.020 obviously, than Gondek and Thiessen.
00:08:40.600 So, of course, you jump into third place.
00:08:43.060 But this is where it's interesting,
00:08:44.900 and Keehan Bexty made a good point.
00:08:46.660 The numbers of who supports Farkas
00:08:48.720 kind of expose who he is.
00:08:50.360 You go down here.
00:08:52.120 This is mayoral vote choice among liberal supporters.
00:08:56.860 Now, among the liberals, obviously,
00:08:58.300 Gondek, that is her bread and butter,
00:09:00.520 and she gets 34.8% of the vote.
00:09:03.500 But look, Farkas gets 26.3% of federal liberals.
00:09:08.880 I think it's because a lot of people know.
00:09:11.000 It's like the camp who voted for him last time
00:09:13.420 are willing to vote for him this time.
00:09:15.180 They haven't been paying attention.
00:09:16.560 But there's enough liberals who have been paying attention
00:09:18.440 and see that he's moved to liberal,
00:09:20.160 and now they are willing to vote for him.
00:09:22.260 Because they've probably been seeing all the interviews
00:09:24.840 he's been doing,
00:09:25.980 howling around with Nenshi,
00:09:27.380 basically criticizing the UCP,
00:09:29.420 borderline endorsing the NDP
00:09:31.160 in the last provincial election.
00:09:32.880 And a lot of those people moved over.
00:09:35.120 And as much as people try and claim like,
00:09:37.300 oh my goodness, Sonia Sharpe's a liberal,
00:09:39.200 because I think she had like a couple liberal votes on council.
00:09:42.280 I believe pretty much all of them she said,
00:09:44.200 oh, I regret that, and I'd repeal that.
00:09:46.220 She's only at 8.5%,
00:09:47.740 which should tell you that liberals themselves
00:09:50.040 do not see her as a liberal,
00:09:52.060 but they do see Farkas as a liberal.
00:09:53.640 But now I want to jump back over,
00:09:57.300 actually the funny thing is,
00:09:59.440 Davison is doing disproportionately better
00:10:01.620 with liberals than Sharpe is.
00:10:03.660 Sharpe is just doing better in the election,
00:10:05.180 so naturally she picks up a few more liberal people,
00:10:07.600 because maybe they like certain things
00:10:09.580 and certain policies in the campaign.
00:10:11.700 But Davison is actually pretty close behind her
00:10:13.900 for being so far behind in the overall polling,
00:10:16.500 and it's because Davison himself
00:10:17.920 was a big liberal supporter back in the day.
00:10:20.620 He was somebody who voted very consistently
00:10:24.200 with Nahid Nenshi and Gondek when he was on council.
00:10:27.300 He even voted for, or not voted for,
00:10:29.960 I don't think he lives in the same ward,
00:10:31.340 but he endorsed and helped cut a campaign video
00:10:34.660 for George Chahal in 2021, the Porch Pirate,
00:10:39.100 who basically was ripping away all of the literature
00:10:42.980 of his opponent, Jag Zahota, while he was going around.
00:10:45.780 He endorsed that guy,
00:10:47.140 and maybe it's because they served on council together,
00:10:49.400 so he endorsed him.
00:10:51.020 My goodness, if you're so dull
00:10:52.500 that you just endorse a guy because you know him,
00:10:54.640 please leave politics.
00:10:56.220 It's an adult business,
00:10:58.160 and we do not need children
00:10:59.240 endorsing their friends for office.
00:11:01.840 But in a second here, I'm going to pause,
00:11:03.680 and then I want to go to the Leger poll
00:11:06.360 and kind of show you the urban-suburban breakdown.
00:11:09.020 I don't think it's the best poll.
00:11:10.500 This one has 20% undecided.
00:11:12.740 The Leger poll has like 45% undecided,
00:11:15.460 so take certain aspects of it with a grain of salt,
00:11:18.880 but I will be back with it in just a second here.
00:11:22.440 I'm going to do this segment a little bit more quick and dirty,
00:11:26.400 so I'm just taking the top three individuals
00:11:28.720 who are in the race because, frankly,
00:11:31.240 Davison is an also-ran candidate
00:11:33.040 and just splitting Sonia Sharp's vote
00:11:34.960 by pretending to be super conservative,
00:11:36.660 and then you have Keeson,
00:11:39.080 who I think he's going to be doing better
00:11:40.740 than the 5.5% that we see in the other poll,
00:11:43.600 but I don't think he's going to be punching
00:11:45.020 like 20s or 30s
00:11:46.800 and be in contention to actually become mayor.
00:11:49.220 You watch his debates,
00:11:50.700 and he kind of has that ninchy style
00:11:52.900 where he's going to talk like he's on Xanax,
00:11:55.540 and we need to really come together
00:11:57.620 and invest in our city.
00:11:59.800 It's bad whenever I see him in a debate,
00:12:02.560 but I want to show you the Leger numbers,
00:12:04.120 which, remember, had 45% undecided
00:12:08.020 because, yeah, it's not like a bad poll
00:12:12.840 or anything like that.
00:12:14.720 It's just, I would say that mayoral polling is tough
00:12:18.120 because so few people are paying attention.
00:12:20.800 The Juno poll, I'd want to see their methodology
00:12:22.880 just to see how they were able to get
00:12:24.600 more consistent people being decided.
00:12:28.000 It just depends on the sample that you get.
00:12:30.060 The problem with this Leger poll
00:12:31.700 and why the top-line numbers
00:12:33.420 are not reliable.
00:12:34.780 It had Marcus at, like, 14,
00:12:37.440 Gondek at 13, and, like, Sharp at 7.
00:12:40.060 The problem is is the mix of this poll
00:12:42.020 is, like, more than 2 to 1 urban to suburban,
00:12:45.840 and if you live in Calgary,
00:12:47.880 you know that this city
00:12:49.080 is, like, 3 to 1 suburban to urban.
00:12:52.900 I think I looked it up.
00:12:54.240 On a more strict definition,
00:12:55.740 it's, like, 3.8 suburban to urban.
00:12:57.860 It's just not a very urban city.
00:12:59.740 Tons of suburban communities everywhere.
00:13:01.320 Some people live downtown,
00:13:02.920 but it's, like, maybe 200,000 people
00:13:05.140 out of the 1.2 million.
00:13:06.960 It's very, very minor.
00:13:09.220 But let's...
00:13:09.920 So let's go through this now,
00:13:11.480 and I'm going to be writing
00:13:12.380 the urban numbers on the left,
00:13:14.060 and then we are going to go
00:13:14.960 to the suburban on the right.
00:13:16.460 I would say the suburban
00:13:17.420 is effectively the real race.
00:13:19.480 Not only is the actual amount
00:13:21.980 of people living in suburban areas higher,
00:13:23.740 but suburban turnout
00:13:25.240 also tends to be higher.
00:13:27.420 So with the Leger numbers,
00:13:29.520 Jeremy Farkas in urban areas,
00:13:31.820 which also shows you
00:13:32.820 how liberal his support base is,
00:13:34.640 is 16%.
00:13:36.560 Sonia Sharp is actually only at 4%
00:13:39.940 in this category for urban.
00:13:43.820 And then Gondek,
00:13:46.800 Mayor Jody Gondek,
00:13:48.240 is at 13%.
00:13:51.280 We then jump over to suburban,
00:13:55.080 and this is where it's more
00:13:56.020 of a real race.
00:13:57.360 Farkas is at 12%
00:13:59.600 in suburban areas.
00:14:03.100 Sonia Sharp is at 13%,
00:14:05.540 actually beating Farkas
00:14:06.900 in suburban areas,
00:14:07.900 which is kind of where
00:14:08.560 you want to be winning.
00:14:09.380 And then Jody Gondek
00:14:12.200 is actually at 14%
00:14:15.680 in suburban areas.
00:14:17.760 So she has the more consistent vote
00:14:19.980 between the two areas,
00:14:21.860 but I don't think you're going to see
00:14:23.240 her actually perform as well
00:14:25.720 in suburban areas and urban.
00:14:27.780 What this could have been
00:14:28.980 is just that they had a high turnout
00:14:31.260 of respondents from Northeast Calgary,
00:14:34.040 which is the suburban area
00:14:35.920 that Gondek does well in.
00:14:37.320 Her Old Ward as well as the Northeast.
00:14:41.080 Farkas, though,
00:14:42.220 with 16% urban areas
00:14:44.000 and 12% in suburban,
00:14:45.720 really shows the shift in his appeal
00:14:47.580 because the thing is that
00:14:49.040 you can just say,
00:14:49.760 oh, maybe it's just a bad sample.
00:14:51.260 Well, maybe.
00:14:51.840 Maybe Sharp should be higher
00:14:53.160 than 4% in urban,
00:14:54.700 and she maybe even should be
00:14:55.720 a little bit higher in suburban
00:14:57.260 because, frankly,
00:14:58.260 based on the activity
00:14:59.740 on the ground,
00:15:00.560 Sharp has a pretty
00:15:02.860 well-organized campaign.
00:15:04.160 I wouldn't kind of doubt
00:15:06.060 that she was going to be
00:15:08.120 suffering that much
00:15:08.860 in urban areas.
00:15:10.020 But the thing with this, though,
00:15:11.460 is the numbers are generally
00:15:12.660 going to be correct.
00:15:14.060 Farkas has become
00:15:14.960 an urban liberal candidate,
00:15:16.980 and his suburban appeal
00:15:18.600 is slipping.
00:15:19.280 The only way he wins, though,
00:15:21.260 is if the suburban appeal
00:15:22.840 holds up enough,
00:15:24.140 like on election day
00:15:25.720 with all voters decided,
00:15:27.740 he's going to get,
00:15:28.700 you know,
00:15:29.400 20% in suburban areas.
00:15:32.160 But then he runs up the score
00:15:33.660 and tries to get,
00:15:34.640 you know,
00:15:34.840 around 40% in the urban areas
00:15:37.600 in order to offset the losses
00:15:39.320 in the suburbans.
00:15:41.100 So I would say the path,
00:15:42.640 and I would say that still,
00:15:44.320 the best person to be voting for
00:15:45.700 if you're a conservative
00:15:46.560 in this Calgary mayoral election
00:15:48.460 is Sonia Sharp.
00:15:50.660 She's on the rise.
00:15:52.000 Farkas has either stalled out
00:15:53.380 or is falling.
00:15:54.840 And Gondek is like
00:15:55.820 the Chicago Lori Lightfoot
00:15:57.740 of this election.
00:15:59.300 Some of the polls,
00:16:00.760 like this Leger one,
00:16:02.120 show her in second.
00:16:03.400 I think that when we get
00:16:04.520 to election day,
00:16:05.360 there's a good chance
00:16:06.040 she'll be in third place.
00:16:07.500 Plus, Brian Thiessen
00:16:08.760 with the Calgary party,
00:16:10.320 they are also basically
00:16:11.480 being backed by Calgary's future,
00:16:13.300 which is another union front group.
00:16:15.220 And I think that you may see
00:16:16.580 a defection of public sector
00:16:18.360 union workers
00:16:19.260 over to Brian Thiessen.
00:16:20.980 Not enough for him
00:16:22.100 to even be competitive.
00:16:23.500 Maybe he gets 14% of the vote,
00:16:25.300 12% of the vote,
00:16:26.360 but that's all going to be
00:16:27.600 coming from Gondek
00:16:28.540 or the potential progressive voters
00:16:30.800 that Farkas is now
00:16:31.760 trying to court.
00:16:33.000 So with enough push
00:16:34.220 and with enough
00:16:35.000 name recognition gain
00:16:36.240 and with the more televised debates
00:16:38.420 that are going to happen
00:16:39.120 later on,
00:16:40.000 I do actually think
00:16:40.980 that there is a good chance
00:16:42.040 for Sharp to win,
00:16:43.120 especially because
00:16:43.980 she has communities
00:16:44.860 first with her,
00:16:45.860 which means that
00:16:46.520 like Brian Thiessen,
00:16:47.940 but in a more effective way,
00:16:50.660 she's going to be able
00:16:51.240 to get out the vote
00:16:52.080 better for herself.
00:16:53.280 Whereas Farkas
00:16:54.200 and Gondek
00:16:54.800 basically as a single campaign
00:16:57.000 have to have a get out the vote
00:16:58.920 sort of strategy
00:16:59.960 for every single ward themselves.
00:17:02.860 Whereas with Sharp,
00:17:05.060 you know,
00:17:05.280 you have Dan McClain
00:17:06.280 in Ward 13,
00:17:08.040 you have Terry Wong,
00:17:09.800 you have,
00:17:10.700 you know,
00:17:11.000 Cornelia Wiebe in eight,
00:17:12.440 you have something,
00:17:13.980 I forgot her name,
00:17:14.700 Taylor in Ward one.
00:17:16.340 There's all these people
00:17:17.080 who can go around
00:17:17.840 reminding people
00:17:18.620 to go vote for the mayor
00:17:19.900 as well.
00:17:21.220 But anyways,
00:17:22.300 so that should be it
00:17:23.600 for this video, guys.
00:17:25.060 Hopefully you like
00:17:25.700 the polling content,
00:17:26.700 even if it's super local
00:17:27.800 stuff like this.
00:17:28.940 This is just a race
00:17:29.880 I really care about
00:17:30.980 and I don't want to have
00:17:31.840 another crappy mayor
00:17:32.800 in Calgary.
00:17:33.800 So if you live in Calgary,
00:17:35.100 make sure to get
00:17:35.660 a Sonia Sharp sign
00:17:36.600 linked in the description below
00:17:37.840 and pinned at the top
00:17:38.580 of the comments.
00:17:39.640 I,
00:17:40.100 it is no holds barred
00:17:41.380 at this point
00:17:41.920 and I'm probably going
00:17:43.500 to be donating
00:17:44.220 a large sum
00:17:45.280 to Sonia Sharp
00:17:46.180 because I just want them
00:17:47.020 to be running more ads,
00:17:48.580 doing more stuff
00:17:49.380 in order to sort of
00:17:50.240 box out Jeremy Farkas
00:17:52.240 and remind people
00:17:54.340 of the type of people
00:17:55.280 on Farkas' campaign
00:17:56.420 if they're still planning
00:17:57.700 to vote for them.
00:17:58.600 Talk to your parents.
00:17:59.720 If your parents liked him
00:18:00.500 last time
00:18:00.980 but they haven't been
00:18:01.500 engaged this time,
00:18:02.740 let them know.
00:18:04.040 And yeah,
00:18:04.640 let them know
00:18:05.060 that Jeff Davison
00:18:05.700 is also not very conservative
00:18:06.900 and if you're thinking
00:18:07.820 of voting for him,
00:18:08.880 just vote for Sonia instead.
00:18:10.180 My goodness.
00:18:11.500 Anyways,
00:18:12.180 so with that being said,
00:18:13.340 I will see you guys
00:18:14.220 all later.
00:18:15.180 you've got some