In the 2004 Alberta general election, Jacobs lost by a 129-vote margin to Paul Hinman, a then-Alberta Alliance party member. He regained his seat in the Legislature in 2008, with a 38-vote margin over Hinman, leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party, shutting the party out of the Legislature in an election where the Progressive Conservatives took 72 of the 83 seats provincewide.
