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ndp leadership contest predictions
March 10, 2012 - 2:24pm
this is the sort of thread that really irritates some anti-horserace types, but i can't resist.
from now, before the last debate and 2 weeks out, here's how i think the contest will go down:
1st round: ashton out
2nd round: singh out
3rd round: topp out
4th round: dewar out
5th round: cullen out
6th round: nash out and mulcair wins.
any thoughts?
In the first round, I think Singh will be eliminated and Ashton will withdraw. Otherwise, that's pretty much how I see it unfolding. Though increasingly I see a chance of Cullen surpassing Nash to be on the final ballot with Mulcair.
I think both Nash and Cullen will be on the final ballot with Mulcair.
M 32 39 44 58
N 18 25 31 42
C 16 20 25 eliminated
D 13 16 eliminated
T 11 withdraws
A 7 withdraws
S 3 eliminated
On a related note -
If Mulcair manages to win the NDP leadership, especially if his last-round competitor is someone like Nash, will his harshest critics in the party accept that he won the confidence of members legitimately enough to unite behind him?
(I don't mean Topp. If Mulcair wins, I doubt Topp will be in any rush for a seat, nor will Mulcair be in any haste to embrace him. But I mean the members who echo Topp's anti-Mulcair sentiments.)
This thread is just an invitation to look foolish in 2 weeks.
Thats said I'm going to make a bold prediction: When Brian Topp drops off the ballot he will walk accross the floor to the Mulcair camp.
Results after the first round will be
1. Mulcair
2. Cullen
3. Nash
4. Dewar
5. Topp
I'll say only Mulcair, Cullen or Nash could win. But I really don't know which one will do it. Mulcair obviously has a good chance, Cullen has momentum and could just pull it off. Nash I'm less certain, she was the fall back good all around dipper but has not had a good campaign.
@theleftyinvestor A Mulcair win will piss off the largest number of mostly lefty members, Cullen has a controversial co-op plan that a segment dislike/hate, but since it does not just take effect and some think it won't ever happen anyway, there would not be the same discord (plus it's hard not to like him personally). Whereas the anti-Mulcair discord is due to an objection to him personally.
I hope that members are not pissed off regardless of who wins. If Mulcair wins on the last ballot aginst Cullen it may because many on the left prefer Mulcair over Cullen's plan to deconstruct the NDP.
At first, I was like WTF?, but I cracked your code.
I'm guessing that Singh will have higher numbers, just from his sign-ups in the Sikh community. Not sure if he will beat Ashton.
I think your ranking approximates my best guess. If Cullen drops 2nd to final ballot, I figure abou 60-66% of his votes will go to Mulcair.
(just an opinion, I might revise after the last debate on Sunday).
Well, I want to Tom to win, but who knows?
I think Cullen has momentum, although I think Nash still has quite a lot of the membership support who might favor a more "traditional NDP" candidate. I do agree with your assessment that the only reasonably viable winners are Mulcair, Cullen and Nash. I probably place higher odds on Nash than Cullen, although the membership might surprise us.
It would certainly be a riveting result if Mulcair faces Cullen on the final ballot (as opposed to a Mulcair/Nash final ballot).
I don't know if anyone was there on the BC leadership convention when Skelly triumphed over Vickers. Bill King had made a "mutual support" pact and when he was dropped, all his glum-looking supporters were literally herded behind him and they all had to carry Skelly posters in a dramatic parade that circled the convention floor. Bill King was clearly livid as his face looked like it was about to explode with anger.
I seriously doubt we will witness anything this dramatic at the convention. (but it would be sort of fun to have some drama - just nothing too dramatic).
it's really hard to guess where topp will end up in this. at this point, i think the consensus (even within the campaign) is that he has a very very narrow path to victory, essentially because so much of what he considered his natural 1st ballot support base is being eaten up by what one of his campaign team called "regional candidates" - cullen in bc, nash in toronto area, dewar in ottawa/the north/manitoba, and ashton somewhat in the prairies. what the topp team seems to fear is that each of these will, based on their regional appeals and pockets of support across the country, overtake topp in the early rounds so that he goes out after singh and ashton. if singh is taking the fight to topp among the south asian communities that powered dix to his unexpected win in bc. it's clear that singh will go out before topp does, but if singh can sway a solid portion of his support to 2nd ballot support for mulcair and 3rd for topp, that hurts topp horribly not necessarily for how it helps mulcair, but for how it hurts him viz cullen/nash/dewar.
i'm also thinking about the impact of the 1st round exit of ashton vs the 1st round exit of singh. if singh goes out 1st, and he really has been advocating for mulcair, it would mean that his 6 thousand new member base either didn't go uniformly for him, or was less than what ashton managed to muster. in the case that he does go out early, it'd seem to mean that topp's bc organizers did good work, and that would mean that topp might not go out in the 3rd round and mulcair may be in some trouble (though probably not from topp). if ashton gets 5000 votes and goes out first, then i think topp is toast in the 3rd round, and mulcair should win.
I did see Mulcair get interviewed after the last debate about what he'd do if he doesn't win. My recollection is that he basically said he'd do exactly what he did last election when he wasn't the leader - he'd work hard on uniting Quebec behind the NDP. So I think that the "disaster scenario" polls out there about a Nash or Cullen win being devastating in Quebec are ignorant of the fact that Mulcair will still be a huge part of the campaign if he doesn't win. In fact if he's not leader, he might actually be able to devote his time better to holding the gains in Quebec.
Certainly, Mulcair not being elected leader means he'd have more time to devote to consolidating NDP gains in Quebec. However, I imagine that Mulcair being elected leader would mean that he wouldn't have to devote as much time to consolidating NDP gains in Quebec. (I am, of course, speaking in terms of how much time Mulcair would have to devote to bring NDP support in Quebec back up to the levels in Election 2011.)
(This double post has been whomped with an eraser.)
In the last leadership race, most of the babble commentary was insistent that the race would go at least two ballots. I was one of the few who came close, predicting Layton would get between 45-55% on the first ballot (I think he got 53%). Since all my general election predictions have been crap, I'm going to flaunt that one for awhile.
I have a feeling this race has a similar dynamic. I think Mulcair is further ahead than people think. I also think he has more growth potential than people think.
Prediction 1: I think Mulcair is going to take this in 2 or 3 ballots.
Prediction 2: I think Singh and Ashton will be at the bottom of the first ballot.
And for the others, the strategy is clearly to try to be in that all important second place spot. I think that for each of the others, if they are not second by the second ballot, they are finished, and might as well drop off.
Prediction 3: I think Dewar is the least likely among the rest to come second on any ballot.
But I really have no idea who amonst Topp, Cullen and Nash will lead the pack.
There - I'm now properly positioned to look foolish. Hopefully, this thread will remain open long enough for me to delete my post when I'm wrong. :)
Those aren't very risky predictions, Lou Arab. Gun shy? :-)
I'm going to stick my neck out. Here's how the first-round ballot results will rank the candidates:
1. Mulcair (~28%)
2. Nash (~23%)
3. Dewar (~15%)
4. Topp or Cullen (~13-15%)
5. Cullen or Topp (~10-14%)
6. Ashton (~6%)
7. Singh (~4%)
I think Topp is doing worse than many people think, and I think Nash is doing better and is also well-positioned as a default "safe" choice for people, which will mean she gets a lot of later-round support. Only Nash or Mulcair can win, with a very small chance for a different "wild card" winner. Whether Nash or Mulcair wins depends on who drops out first: Cullen or Topp.
Mulcair will have an advantage in the first two rounds because more Singh and Ashton supporters will go to him (especially Singh) than any other candidate. That will mean he's close to 35% after two rounds.
But more Dewar and Topp supporters will go to Nash (Topp supporters especially), while a lot of Cullen supporters may favour Mulcair. There is rampant speculation about alliances made, but I can see Topp and Nash, because they are so allied and have been treating each other with kid gloves, having made a deal and are quietly suggesting the other for favourable placement to their supporters. You may even see one moving to the other on the convention floor like Kennedy going to Dion in the Liberal race in '06, for whatever good it will do.
So starting the third round, you will really start to see the numbers move. If Cullen ranks higher than 5th place by then, Mulcair is finished.
If Cullen holds on to his supporters until the second-to-last round or the last round, Mulcair won't unlock those supporters and never get enough to put him over 50%, and Nash will win.
What per cent of people will have voted by mail or online before March 24th? Is it 65%? 75%?
Events that take place on March 24th are not going to have that big an impact on people's votes, as most of the voting will be done by then.
And by now my hunch is that probably 90-95% have already voted or at least decided who they are voting for.
I don't see anyone else predicting this is over by the third ballot.
I don't see how it matter whether Cullen is eliminated after the first ballot or the fifth ballot - if you believe that his voters will tend to preference Mulcair then Mulcair will get his votes at whatever point it is when Cullen gets eliminated. Unless we have a Mulcair-Cullen final count - at some point all of Cullen's preferences will get distributed.
If Cullen is surging to #2, either the Topp and Nash campaigns are lying about not having an alliance or the Nash/Topp/Dewar/Ashton campaigns can't put egos aside to advance a single "traditional" NDP candidate which is pretty sad on their parts.
Actually, I think if it becomes true that Singh is doing Mulcair dirty work than Nash and/or Topp team would go to Cullen. The NDP would not be backing a candidate who wants the organization to operate in that way. I know that I'd sure vote other wise - winning is not everything - it just means I have to sleep at night with myself.
By the third round, if Cullen is still in it, and I think he may be, he will be almost certainly higher than 5th. Mulcair might be at 28%, but I don't think Nash is doing well enough outside of Ontario to be at 23%.
I do wonder what first choice support Cullen has outside of BC, and I wonder if Topp is even this high.
I'm thinking more like:
1. Mulcair (~28%)
2. Nash (~18%)
3. Cullen (~17%)
4. Topp (~15%)
5. Dewar (~10%)
6. Ashton (~7%)
7. Singh (~5%)
Someone could get 50% with three people still on the ballot, including Cullen.
I don't think it will take more than four.
we're going to learn a lot about where the campaigns think it stands tomorrow with the debate. but after a couple more discussions tonight, i'm thinking that maybe, policy wonk, your assessment is close to the mark. though i'd put ashton down around 5%, singh around 5%, and dewar up around 14% or so, with topp a little lower. and you scenario looks like it could lead to a mulcair/cullen final ballot pretty adroitly, which something in my bones tells me is highly unlikely.
I'm dubious as to how much second and third choice support Cullen has, but it may be more than enough to keep him on the third ballot.
How is this for a prediction? First-ballot win for Niki Ashton!
Oh well, I can dream, can't I?