Getty was not able to gain the confidence of Albertans as Lougheed had, and the party's popular vote fell by ten percentage points.

The PCs were still, however, able to win a fifth term in government, with over half the votes in the province, and 61 of the 83 seats in the legislature.

The New Democratic Party, now led by Ray Martin, was able to make itself the focus of opposition to the PC government, winning almost 30% of the vote, and sixteen seats in the legislature (up from two in the 1982 election), mostly in Edmonton where they became the dominant political party.

The Liberal Party of Nicholas Taylor returned to the legislature for the first time since 1969 with four seats.

Two seats were won by former Social Credit members who had formed the Representative Party of Alberta after winning re-election in 1982 as independents.

)[1] Thus the 1986 Legislature was part of a break, short lived as it happened, in the usual pattern of Alberta politics that some describe as ideologically conservative, anachronistic, odd and unpredictable.