When I released my first set of LPC Power Rankings in early February, I was a bit surprised to see Justin Trudeau up at 66%. These rankings aren’t intended to be a first ballot predictor, but they came pretty close to the mark in the NDP contest and it was still a bit of shock to see Trudeau 54 points above his nearest competitor. But wouldn’t you know it, Marc Garneau’s mystery poll was essentially spot on my numbers. So maybe there’s something to this.
And if there is, we are heading to an absolute rout.
| Fundraising | Endorsement | Media | Power Rank | |||
| Justin Trudeau | $1,001,060 | 94% | 60% | 71,773 | 195,672 | 75% (+9) |
| Joyce Murray | $169,411 | 5% | 13% | 1,998 | 5,615 | 9% (+4) |
| Martha Hall Findlay | $178,590 | 1% | 10% | 8,571 | 7,819 | 7% (+1) |
| Martin Cauchon | $103,203 | 1% | 7% | 2,565 | 1,609 | 4% (+3) |
| Karen McCrimmon | $26,259 | 0% | 6% | 375 | 848 | 2% (+1) |
| Deborah Coyne | $27,385 | 0% | 5% | 479 | 2,155 | 2% (+1) |
You can see the methodology behind these rankings here. Since the last update, I’ve sweetened the recipe with ever-so-small weights for number of donors and Facebook “talking abouts”, but it doesn’t change the rankings.
The bracketed number on the final column reflects changes from the last update – you can consider it a “momentum” score of sorts, with everyone picking up some of the pieces from the Garneau, Takach, and Bertschi campaigns. Trudeau’s +9 score is nearly as much as the rest of the field combined, and he shows no signs of slowing down the stretch.
Nearly doubling her Power Score since the last update is Joyce Murray, who has raised an additional $100,000, picked up 1200 new Twitter followers and 800 likes, while earning an endorsement by Ted Hsu.
This sets up an interesting battle for second between Murray and Hall Findlay, but it appears to be a battle for a very, very distant second.
18 responses to “Updated Power Rankings Show Trudeau in Control”
At risk of being unfair, I think there is a serious potential issue here regarding whether the non-Justin candidates have complied with the party rules on debt. I have absolutely no proof, mind you, so take this with a big grain of salt, but common sense suggests that most of these people have blown past the 75k debt limit.
Even taking the best performer, MHL, who supposedly has 178k, with is really 160k after the party tithe is taken out. Then take out the 75k signup fee, and put it back in as the debt limit. These candidates have been running national campaigns, with literature, social media, sophisticated websites, organizers, professional fundraisers, daily events, lots of media appearances in every province, etc. etc. These campaigns have been run on 50k-160k? So orders of magnitude cheaper than any prior leadership races? I don’t buy it.
I mean, I could buy the argument that one or two of these people have run fantastically lean campaigns – and huge kudos to them. But all of them, all at the same time? No way. And that’s really unfair to the candidates who really did play by the rules.
A lot of it is going to be volunteer driven.
I know a lot of costs (including fundraising and travel) are exempt from the spending limits, but I’m not sure if they apply vis-a-vis the debt rules. Anyone?
Thats a very good question, and I don’t know for sure.
On first glance, those expenses should still count – the spending limit exceptions are only explicitly linked to the issue of the spending limit. And the debt limit issue only refers to the candidate&third parties holding 75k of loans – there’s no explicit hierarchy of loans.
But the loans language does interestingly refer to it being “subject” to decisions made by the expenses committee. So maybe there’s a bit of sleight of hand there.
I’m kind of disheartened that Deborah Coyne and Karen McCrimmon are scoring below Martin Cauchon. He has been resoundingly disappointing and unremarkable to me, whereas both Deborah and Karen have surpassed my expectations. I actually get a sense from Coyne that she is federal leadership material. I do not get that impression from Cauchon, despite his cabinet experience.
In terms of the rankings above, Cauchon’s edge from them comes from fundraising, and that’s from a small number of donors making large donations.
I suspect he’ll drop out before the vote, but if he stays in, I don’t think it would be shocking for one of Coyne or McCrimmon to best him.
The new contest: can Justin get 75% on the first ballot?
Are the rules that you cannot be more than $75K in debt at any instant in time or at the end of the race?
I agree that Coyne and McCrimmon have preformed very well. I gave them both some money and would encourage anyone else who is impressed with them and can afford to give a bit, to do likewise.
Despite this very nice analysis, I don’t think Trudeau will get 75% on the first ballot, but I think he is likely to get more than 50%. Justin will have some of his supporters doing strategic voting (putting him second and someone not expected to win first), while Martha and Joyce don’t have to worry about this and will have their supporters certain that every vote is needed.
There is also the matter of what we are referring to when we say 50% or 75% or whatever. Are we talking about total vote share, or number of ridings won, or average vote share per riding, or some other quantity? In addition to muddying our language, the riding-based outcome makes it difficult to predict how the first ballot with go, as long as we don’t know how registered voters are distributed in the ridings.
Does anyone know how the top three’s supporters are distributed geographically?
It stands to reason that Murray is strong in BC and Findlay is strong in Alberta, which might help them do a bit better, but it really comes down to the riding level. Vancouver and Calgary ridings are still going to have more members than those in rural Quebec.
On that front, I really have no idea. I hope the party releases the riding-by-riding vote totals after all is said and done, but I suspect given the low number of voters in some ridings, they won’t.
“but I suspect given the low number of voters in some ridings….”
This is why I’m not fan of doing it by riding. Otherwise I think it makes sense; we choose governments starting at the riding level, and this gives the rural regions a stronger voice in the Liberal Party, which it needs to get in touch with. But I bet you there will be ridings that have just a handful of people voting, and that should just not be enough to have the same weight a riding with hundreds of voters.
The best example of this is, of course, the 2006 LPC leadership race, when Bob Rae swept one of the rural Quebec ridings with just 2 votes.
Hopefully it won’t be that bad, but some ridings could be worth more than others by a factor of 50.
Oh, and just to add to that, I actually like the CPC system the best. 100 points per riding, but no single person can be worth more than 1 point. So if you only get 20 voters in a riding, it’s only worth 20 points.
I think that’s a good compromise.
I’m still glad I didn’t make any substantial contribution to the Garneau campaign. 😛
Murray says she is in the lead and has more registered supporters than Trudeau. This could put a crimp in Trudeau’s fundraising, since I don’t think those people want to give money to Murray. In fact, some of them may want their money back if it goes to Murray.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/03/26/liberal_leadership_candidate_joyce_murray_our_numbers_are_higher_than_anyone_elses.html
Given how well Cullen did as the NDP’s co-operation candidate, and given Trudeau’s difficulties registering his supporters, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Murray exceed the 9% I list her at above.
But I really have a hard time believing she’s got more votes in her pocket than Justin. And if she does, she likely shouldn’t broadcast it too loudly – her best shot would be that Trudeau’s supporters assume it’s in the bag and don’t bother voting.
You’re right. Probably more a strategy for making sure you finish second, and as strongly as possible, than for actually trying to finish first. The numbers people have a handle on (like fundraising) show her in a fight with MHF for second, so whatever info she has on votes is the only thing she can allude to, to boost her perceived ranking.
Hmm, the raw supporter numbers might actually favour Murray, especially when you consider that her excellent rate of registering supporters to vote will likely be mirrored by a strong turnout, but there is a HUGE mitigating factor. You see, Trudeau ran a full campaign, all organised and everything with phone banks in many cities. Joyce hauled in plenty of supporters, but she did not go and get them, they self enlisted through Leadnow, FairVote, etc, and so will def. be concentrated regionally. Trudeaus phone banks have been fosused on rinky dink rural ridings for a reason. Winning Van-Quadra by 5,000 votes, or Trinity-Spadina with 2,500 will not help Joyce much when Trudeau reels in 100 Pictous, and the like with 20 votes each.
Where do you get your info? The Toronto Star refused to endorse Kathleen Wynne because she was a lesbian??
i think the Star supports politicians who no one else supports because they want to appear to be politically correct.