Partisanship, gender and conservatism helped shape Calgary's Olympic vote, according to study

New data from the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy show factors like partisanship, fiscal conservatism and gender may have shaped how Calgarians voted in the Olympic plebiscite.

The survey, conducted by Forum Research on behalf of the school, looked at three sets of factors — demographics, partisanship and attitudes.

It found women were more likely to vote against an Olympic bid, as were United Conservative Party partisans. One of the strongest factors for opposing the bid found in the study was fiscal conservatism.

Jack Lucas, the project researcher, said this appears to be the first survey done on a failed Olympic plebiscite and it holds lessons for others in liberal democracies hoping to pursue a bid.

"The big story there, if you step outside the specific local context in Calgary, is just the importance of these concerns about costs and spending among voters," he said.

Bid supporters

Partisans of other parties, those who voted for Naheed Nenshi in the last mayoral race and those who strongly identify as Calgarians were more likely to vote for the bid, according to the survey.

Other factors for supporting a bid were higher income and university education.

Lucas said the partisanship issue is something that often gets overlooked in these debates.

"We sometimes have a tendency to forget a little bit that the Olympic bid is, among other things, a matter of government policy-making," he said.

"And the feelings you have about the governments that are involved in those policy decisions are going to really shape the way you think about the Olympics itself."

Details of the survey

The push to host the 2026 Winter Games in Calgary was shelved after 56.4 per cent of voters opted against the bid in November of last year.

The survey of 1,975 Calgarians who voted in the plebiscite was conducted between Nov. 13 and Dec. 14, 2018.

The margin of error for a sample of 1,975 people at a 95 per cent confidence interval is 2.2 per cent, and larger for smaller groups (such as individual wards) within the sample.