1935 Alberta general election

The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.

Premier John E. Brownlee was forced to resign on July 10 1934 when he was sued and found guilty of the seduction of a young clerk working in the Attorney-General's office. The scandal seriously damaged the United Farmers of Alberta's reputation among socially conservative Albertans. The new UFA leader, Richard G. Reid, was unable to recover the party's popularity. The UFA's fiscal conservatism and the taint of moral turpitude led to the government's defeat in the 1935 election at the hands of the new Social Credit Party of Alberta and its leader evangelist William Aberhart. Every UFA candidate was defeated. Aberhart's combination of economic populism with Christian social conservatism highlighted the UFA's weaknesses. Social Credit won 56 of the 63 seats in the legislature, and over 50% of the popular vote.

The Alberta Liberals in this election ran with the tactically fatal slogan, the "rest of Canada can't be wrong", referring the popularity of the Liberal Party in the rest of the country, and paid the price by having their seats cut in half.

The turnout of the 1935 election topped 80%, and no election in Alberta has come close to this mark.

This election campaign is seen as the most negative in Alberta's history, with reports of Social Credit members, operating openly and on William Aberhart's directives, defacing the campaign signs of opponents and drowning their speeches by honking car horns. Many campaign ads also focused mostly on attacking the opposing parties.

After the 1935 election results were in, newspapers across North America took notice, with the Boston Globe running the headline ALBERTA GOES CRAZY! Historians note that this election was the biggest single electoral shift in North American history. ^{[citation needed]}

This shift marked the first in the Social Credit's nine back to back election victories.

Results

Party	Party Leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular Vote
Party	Party Leader	# of candidates	1930	Elected	% Change	#	%	% Change Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Social Credit/row	Social Credit	William Aberhart	63	56	163,700	54.25%	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Liberal/row	Liberal	William Howson	61	11	5	-54.5%	69,845	23.14%	-1.45% Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Progressive Conservatives/row	Conservative	David Milwyn Duggan	39	6	2	-66.7%	19,358	6.41%	-8.44% Template:Canadian politics/party colours/United Farmers/row	United Farmers	Richard G. Reid	45	39	-	-100%	33,063	11.00%	-28.41% Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Communist/row	Communist	9	-	5,771	1.91%	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Labour/row	Labour	Fred White	11	4	-	-100%	5,086	1.68%	-5.95% Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Independents/row	Independent	7	3	-	-100%	2,740	0.90%	-12.62% Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Independents/row	Independent Liberal	1	-	955	0.31%	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Independents/row	United Front	1	-	560	0.19%	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Independents/row	Independent Conservative	1	-	258	0.08%	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Independents/row	Independent Labour	1	-	224	0.07%	Template:Canadian politics/party colours/Reconstruction/row	Economic Reconstruction	Elsie Wright	1	-	192	0.06%
Total		240	63	63	-	301,752	100%
Source: Elections Alberta

Members elected

For complete electoral history, see individual districts

	District	Member
8th Alberta Legislative Assembly
Acadia	Norman James	Social Credit
Alexandria	Selmer Berg	Social Credit
Athabasca	Clarence Tade	Social Credit
Beaver River	Lucien Maynard	Social Credit
Bow Valley	Wilson Cain	Social Credit
Calgary #1	Edith H. Gostick	Social Credit
Calgary #2	Ernest Manning	Social Credit
Calgary #3	John Irwin	Conservative
Calgary #4	Fred Anderson	Social Credit
Calgary #5	John J. Bowlen	Liberal
Calgary #6	John Hugill	Social Credit
Camrose	William Chant	Social Credit
Cardston	Nathan Eldon Tanner	Social Credit
Clover Bar	Floyd Baker	Social Credit
Cochrane	William Riking	Social Credit
Coronation	Glenville MacLachlan	Social Credit
Cypress	August Flamme	Social Credit
Didsbury	Edward P. Foster	Social Credit
Drumheller	Herbert Ingrey	Social Credit
Edmonton #1	William Howson	Liberal
Edmonton #2	Samuel Barnes	Social Credit
Edmonton #3	George Van Allen	Liberal
Edmonton #4	David Milwyn Duggan	Conservative
Edmonton #5	David Mullen	Social Credit
Edmonton #6	Gerald O'Connor	Liberal
Edson	Joe Unwin	Social Credit
Empress	David Lush	Social Credit
Gliechen	Issac McCune	Social Credit
Grand Prairie	William Sharpe	Social Credit
Grouard	Leonidar Giroux	Liberal
Hand Hills	Wallace Warren Cross	Social Credit
Innisfail	Erskin MacLellan	Social Credit
Lac St. Anne	Albert Bourcier	Social Credit
Lacombe	Duncan MacMillan	Social Credit
Leduc	Ronald Ansley	Social Credit
Lethbridge	Hans Wight	Social Credit
Little Bow	Peter Dawson	Social Credit
Macleod	Jason Hartley	Social Credit
Medicine Hat	John L. Robinson	Social Credit
Nanton-Claresholm	Harry Haslam	Social Credit
Okotoks-High River	William Morrison	Social Credit
Olds	Herbert Ash	Social Credit
Peace River	William Lampley	Social Credit
Pembina	Harry Knowlton Brown	Social Credit
Pincher Creek	Roy Taylor	Social Credit
Ponoka	Edith Rogers	Social Credit
Red Deer	Alfred J. Hooke	Social Credit
Ribstone	Albert Blue	Social Credit
Rocky Mountain	Ernest Duke	Social Credit
Sedgewick	Albert Fee	Social Credit
St. Albert	Charles Holder	Social Credit
St. Paul	Joseph Beaudry	Social Credit
Stettler	Charles Cockroft	Social Credit
Stony Plain	William Hayes	Social Credit
Sturgeon	James Popil	Social Credit
Taber	James Hanson	Social Credit
Vegreville	James McPherson	Social Credit
Vermillion	William Fallow	Social Credit
Victoria	Samuel Calvert	Social Credit
Wainwright	William Masson	Social Credit
Warner	Solon Low	Social Credit
Wetaskiwin	John Wingblade	Social Credit
Whitford	William Tomyn	Social Credit

v t e Elections and referendums in Alberta
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By-elections	26th Alberta Legislature (2004–2008) 27th Alberta Legislature (2008–2012) 28th Legislature (2012–2015) 29th Legislature (2015–2019)
Senate nominee elections	1989 1998 2004 2012 2021
Municipal elections	1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2017 2021
Referendums	1915 1920 1923 1948 1957 1967 1971 2021
See also: Elections in Canada

Results

Members elected

See also