A 20-month journey by Peter Guthrie and his family has ended and a new one is about to begin.

In his impromptu thank you speech at Half Hitch Brewing Company last night following his landslide victory, Guthrie said he was ready to roll up his sleeves, but believed it was first time to celebrate.

"The real work is supposed to start now," Guthrie told the crowd, "that's what I understand. Let's delay that one day because I think what we should do is have a little fun. Let's party, let's have a good time."

Being new to politics and coming from the grassroots to strike out for his beliefs, Guthrie wasn't about to make lavish promises, but he did assure the crowd of one thing.

"I will promise that I will continue to work hard. I will pull for this community and Bearspaw and Airdrie right to the bitter end and be honest and be open and be upfront with all of you."

In a separate interview, Guthrie reflected upon what had just happened.

"It's been a long journey. It's been 20 months and it just started with my wife and me and my kids. The support just continued to grow and snowball to the point where we have around 250 volunteers. I'm overwhelmed, not by the fact that we won but how so many people wanted to help and be part of change. It's just a great feeling."

Guthrie says he and the UCP will be getting down to business, and soon. He says he will first be talking to the councils of Cochrane, Airdrie and Rocky View to understand their concerns

"I have a pretty idea, but I need to have verification of what my role needs to be for them."

"As a party, we're going to be busy immediately. We're going to repeal the carbon tax, we're going to do what we said we were going to do. It's going to be a long road but we need to set an example in this province right away. We can't sit back, there are too many people out of work we need to get them back to work, exactly as we said we were going to do in the campaign."

Guthrie has a room full of memories from this chapter in his life, but one he cherishes most from the campaign is having the chance to work with his son.

"One of the best times was having my son with me last summer. He wanted to go to work, but I recruited him to work for me, essentially for free. We got to be side-by-side all summer long for four straight months and we got even closer. It was a great bonding that we had."

The Guthrie election night party was buzzing from the start and it was clear his team and supporters were confident victory was at hand. Guthrie, though, didn't want to be a presumption and it was a spontaneous evening of reaching out to his team and supporters.

The unification of the major conservative parties under UCP leader Jason Kenney has successfully returned conservatives to power. In essence, the Progressive Conservatives and Wild Rose Party were splitting votes, as was clearly evident in the Banff-Cochrane election of 2015. The two parties practical ran neck-and-neck with about 5,500 votes apiece. The NDP's Cameron Westhead was able to capitalize and win with 43 per cent of the vote while the WR and PC split the difference.

Guthrie's victory was swift and decisive with his lead compounding as poll-after-poll was posted at his headquarters. In the end, he had 66 per cent of the vote, compared to the 25 per cent captured by his closest rival, NDP's Steve Durrell. The other three candidates had a nominal impact.

With 95 of 97 polls counted, the results are: Peter Guthrie (UCP), 17,570; Steve Durrell (NDP), 6,695; Vern Raincock (AP), 1,645; Danielle Cameron (AIP), 324; and Matthew Morrisey (FCP), 302.

It was also a massive victory for Elections Alberta in attracting voters to the polls by making it more convenient than ever to vote and aggressive multimedia marketing. Voter turnout was an estimated 77 per cent in the newly formed Airdrie-Cochrane. In the 2015 election, there was a 54.2 per cent turnout in the Banff-Cochrane riding.

While the results remain unofficial and some polls have yet to report, the blue machine currently has 63 seats to the NDP's 24, reducing them to the official opposition. All other parties came away empty-handed in what was clearly a two horse race between two different ideologies on how to govern this province.