Rajah Maggay enters the race for Andrew Knack's ward, Principe takes on Kerry Diotte

When Andrew Knack announced he was not running this time around, he indicated he would be endorsing a candidate in the upcoming race.

I think we just found out who that Candidate is likely to be.

Rajah is well known in the Councillor hallway and is currently a staff member in Andrew Knack's office. She's also known from several political extracurriculars. Recently, she's been noted as a partner in the In Her Words bookshop. She was also a co-chair of Searching for Izena, project to celebrate Izena Ross, the first woman elected to Edmonton City Council.

Andrew Knack has long been a public supporter of her work, I would expect that to extend to her running for his former seat, and as a long-time and well-known councillor within that ward that endorsement is likely to carry some weight.

One person hoping it doesn't carry weight is Nicky Gocuan, who will also be running in Nakota Isga. Gocuan is employed with stakeholder relations in the office of Premier Danielle Smith, so he'll be trying to court the UCP-adjacent vote.

Also running is Diana Steele who spent this week, uh, sticking up for Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

Karen Principe is out

Karen Principe has decided to contest the CPC nomination for Edmonton-Griesbach, the seat currently held by the NDP's Blake Desjarlais, but formerly held by Conservative Kerry Diotte.

Kerry Diotte is not well liked by the electorate, perhaps the CPC is thinking a softer, less unapproachable face like Principe would be better received, and may potentially unseat the NDP incumbent.

However, given that the expectation is that a federal election will likely be called in the next couple weeks, it is possible that Principe either does not receive the nomination, or does and loses the general, and still decides she'd like to run as a Councillor in October.

I'll keep an eye on it.

The other three contenders in the ward, Farhan Chak, Fidel Ammar and Chris Nielsen are certainly all celebrating the loss of an incumbent in the ward –– it bodes well for their own electability.

Corrections

In a previous post, I highlighted Justin Thomas as running for mayor, like he did in 2017. He will actually be challenging Ashley Salvador for a councillor position in Ward Métis.

Rahim Jaffer has also bowed out of the mayoral race –– further exploration has revealed that, despite his best hopes, he's just noncompetitive in the race.

In corrections for others: mayoral candidate Tim Cartmell sent out a flyer to every home in Edmonton (at great expense) this week with a link to a survey on his website. The survey was riddled, with many errors.

Elsewhere

Michael Janz has another challenger in papastew

So far, Joshua Doyle is very scant on policy, but coded language around "bike lanes" and "taxes" indicate he'll likely be running on the oft-repeated "core services" and "efficiency" platform.

Also filing their notice of intent, but not revealing a ward yet are Ali Noroozi and Jackie Liu.