Middleton-Hope looking forward following byelection
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on January 29, 2025.
Herald file photo by Ian Martens
UCP candidate John Middleton-Hope, at centre, stands with Minister Jason Nixon, at left, and Coaldale Councillor Bill Chapman, while waiting for results during election night in last month's Lethbridge West byelection.LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
He didn’t win, but John Middleton-Hope made clear to his team of volunteers that they won his admiration during the Lethbridge West by-election campaign in December.
The UCP candidate lost to the NDP’s Rob Miyashiro in the race to fill the vacancy left when long-time MLA Shannon Phillips resigned on July 1.
Standing on a chair in his downtown campaign headquarters, Middleton-Hope told a diverse crowd of volunteers last week of his pride in their accomplishments. And he spoke not just of the past but the future.
“It was an exceptional campaign by any measure and I really appreciate the hard work that everybody did,” said Middleton-Hope, who has since returned to his duty has a member of Lethbridge city council. “It’s just the beginning. We have a lot of work to do.”
Middleton-Hope says his team wants to become part of the constituency association, and another constituency association will be formed in the near future in anticipation of a possible third riding being created in Lethbridge.
“We have an incredible amount of work to be done in order to turn this riding, Lethbridge West, blue in the next election and make sure the other two ridings in Lethbridge also go Conservative,” he says. “So we’re going to need to work with the other constituency associations, we’re going to need to develop this constituency association…we need to be working together” until the next provincial election.
He also poins out that there are upcoming municipal and federal elections that residents can participate in.
“We have a municipal election coming and whether I decide to run or not, we still have a number of candidates that we want to see elected in Lethbridge to ensure that we continue to work hard for the citizens of Lethbridge, make sure that we drive a conservative-based agenda and not an agenda that simply deals with all of the issues that those on the far left are most interested in. There is a lot of work to be done and we need your help.”
Middleton-Hope also praised the students who participated in his campaign, saying more work needs to be done with the student conservative club. He says the campaign learned the conservative vote is migrating from a more senior base to a more junior base, “so we absolutely need young people involved.”
He notes that his campaign had support from UCP MLAs, especially Taber-Warner’s Grant Hunter, whom Middleton-Hope calls “probably our greatest ally. And we’re going to continue to work with Grant as we start to develop this model where we have greater representation for conservatives in Lethbridge.”
Middleton-Hope says with a federal election coming up, there is a lot of opportunity for people to get involved and while there won’t be political parties allowed in October’s municipal election outside of Calgary and Edmonton, he believes candidates will be aligning themselves politically at local levels.
He doesn’t know if he’ll run provincially again, saying “the timing was right this time.” He says the UCP campaign for Lethbridge West “was way behind the eight ball” with 350 members in the constituency association before it started. Now it has 6,200 members.
“We had to build that momentum, instead of hitting the ground running like Rob did because he already had the infrastructure, he already had the office space, he already had the volunteers. We started with nothing, we had no volunteers.”
15-14
Still whining about his defeat…sheesh!