Despite losing the election, NDP candidate Steve Durrell is upbeat about a campaign that held many firsts for the party's local constituency association. He also eyes the future with reservations about the impact of a UCP government.

"It was a fantastic campaign," says Durrell, who came second with 25 per cent of the vote. "We built a movement like the NDP has never seen before in Cochrane. We had a small army of volunteers and for the first time we had a campaign office."

Durrell wants to see the UCP will proceed with improvements to the Hwy. 1A-22 intersection despite the fact they made no firm commitment to do so during the election. He's also fearful of the ill-effects of a pull back in infrastructure funding and freezes in education and health care by a Kenney government.

"Pulling back on education spending for Rocky View Schools would be particularly catastrophic," says Durrell. "They're already feeling the squeeze as it is and we do need those new schools and teachers in the riding."

He is concerned about the promise to reduction minimum wage for youth and servers.

"As a union person, one of the most basic things that I believe is that someone deserves equal pay for equal work with people they work beside."

He's fearful about what the future holds for the LGBTQ community, minorities and special needs groups and believes many important inroads were made by the Notley administration that would be rash to set aside.

"Hopefully the UCP and Guthrie himself will try to advocate for keeping some programs around, like the $25 a day child care because that will help a lot of working moms get back in the workforce and help our economy."

"I'm hopeful that they'll keep some of the legacies from the past four years because I think that there some things there that people wanted and that's why we do see a rather strong opposition in the legislature."

Durrell says it was a polarizing election across the province and it was no different here. Many voters had already decided how they were voting the minute the election was called.

"I think that we did change some minds right across the board but it was a polarizing campaign in our riding, similar to right across the province."

Still, he salutes the strong turnout for the vote by Airdrie-Cochrane residents.

Now the NDP will have their hands full with battling the strong majority held by the UCP.

"We're going to have a rather strong opposition in the legislature and hopefully we'll be able to keep the UCP to task."