Instead, he turned his attention to the provincial Progressive Conservatives. The party had never formed government since Alberta's founding as a province in 1905 and had captured only 13% of the vote in the 1963 election and had no seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Social Credit had formed every government since 1935, led initially by Premier William Aberhart and from 1943 by Premier Ernest Manning. Manning was popular and his party had received 55 percent of the vote in the 1963 election to capture 60 of 63 seats in the legislature in 1963.