Projections Update
As always, you can see my projection spreadsheet online.
In an effort to remove some of the subjectivity to the projections, I've replaced my "gut feeling" level of grass roots support for each candidate with the regional polling data from the Ekos and Strategic Counsel polls which came out this week. For the record, I see major problems with the accuracy of both these polls (some of which are discussed by Penny here) but it's still worth including them, I think.
So, to recap, here's the Coles Notes version of how I arrived at these predictions (for the long version, click here):
- 15% of the delegates are ex-officio. So 15% of the vote has been assigned based on the average of identified ex-officio on wikipedia and delegate count.
-For the elected delegates, I broke each province down into new memberships sold and existing memberships. Based on news reports, leaked numbers, and the word on the street, I assigned the new sales to their respective leadership camps.
-The existing member support has been estimated using a variety of information available. I've given 1/3 of the existing member support to the regional breakdown on the two polls released this week. The other 2/3 has been assigned based on media mentions, blog endorsements, other projections, MP endorsements, fundraising dollars, and number of donors.
From there, excel gives me a number. And today, after updating all of this, excel is predicting a first ballot which looks like:
Michael Ignatieff 26.6%
Bob Rae 17.6%
Gerard Kennedy 17.6%
Stephane Dion 14.1%
Joe Volpe 8.6%
Ken Dryden 7.3%
Scott Brison 6.4%
Martha Hall Findlay 1.8%
I'll post a final update on Friday with my own predictions. For now, it appears that Ignatieff is still heading for a strong first ballot lead but, as always, the question is how much growth potential he has. Kennedy and Rae are in a dead heat for second, with Stephane Dion nipping at his heels. No one else really appears to have much of a chance of winning, barring some surprises.
In an effort to remove some of the subjectivity to the projections, I've replaced my "gut feeling" level of grass roots support for each candidate with the regional polling data from the Ekos and Strategic Counsel polls which came out this week. For the record, I see major problems with the accuracy of both these polls (some of which are discussed by Penny here) but it's still worth including them, I think.
So, to recap, here's the Coles Notes version of how I arrived at these predictions (for the long version, click here):
- 15% of the delegates are ex-officio. So 15% of the vote has been assigned based on the average of identified ex-officio on wikipedia and delegate count.
-For the elected delegates, I broke each province down into new memberships sold and existing memberships. Based on news reports, leaked numbers, and the word on the street, I assigned the new sales to their respective leadership camps.
-The existing member support has been estimated using a variety of information available. I've given 1/3 of the existing member support to the regional breakdown on the two polls released this week. The other 2/3 has been assigned based on media mentions, blog endorsements, other projections, MP endorsements, fundraising dollars, and number of donors.
From there, excel gives me a number. And today, after updating all of this, excel is predicting a first ballot which looks like:
Michael Ignatieff 26.6%
Bob Rae 17.6%
Gerard Kennedy 17.6%
Stephane Dion 14.1%
Joe Volpe 8.6%
Ken Dryden 7.3%
Scott Brison 6.4%
Martha Hall Findlay 1.8%
I'll post a final update on Friday with my own predictions. For now, it appears that Ignatieff is still heading for a strong first ballot lead but, as always, the question is how much growth potential he has. Kennedy and Rae are in a dead heat for second, with Stephane Dion nipping at his heels. No one else really appears to have much of a chance of winning, barring some surprises.
posted by calgarygrit at
9:37 p.m.
31 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By
Anonymous, at 9:59 p.m.
You've done such great work with this; would you care to do a policy spectrum analysis among the candidates, to start to guess which candidates are more closely aligned, and how delegates might start to break on later ballots? Or has someone begun that effort?
For example, I'd expect Brison's policies to be closer to Ignatieff than to, say, former 'dipper Rae.
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Paul, at 10:38 p.m.
I think there will be a lot of speculation about which candidates will go where after this weekend.
But, if recent history is any indication, the safe guess is just that they'll all endorse Bob Rae :-)
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calgarygrit, at 11:11 p.m.
Boy this is going to be interesting. Basically who blinks first between Dion, Rae and Kennedy.
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Shawn, at 11:17 p.m.
"I think there will be a lot of speculation ..."
True, that. Just as there has been a lot of speculation about who's the frontrunner, and by how much.
You've just done a much better job than most at turning speculation into informed speculation.
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Paul, at 11:24 p.m.
1 woman candidate with 2% of the vote.
Is this the Liberal Party of Canada or the Taliban? -)
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godot10, at 12:06 a.m.
I am sort of a professional dissident (I sort of view myself as a "classical liberal", with the understanding that one has to bring a post-modern interpretation to the term, which essentially means all the current parties suck...
...but I did pay my $10 and will be voting for Martha Hall Findlay on Friday.
P.S. The Liberal Party has done a lousy job of protecting the privacy rights of its members, as I am now receiving Liberal "spam". I am most decidedly not impressed.
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godot10, at 12:14 a.m.
I cannot believe that still 7% of party members are dumb enough to support Joe Volpe. Who exactly are these people. This guy should be at 0.1% (himself and his family).
Other than that I think the predictions are reasonably accurate. As for later ballot growth, I cannot see Brison going to Rae considering that Brison is on the right of the party while rae is on the left. I suspect that between Dion and Kennedy, whichever one is dropped off first will go to the other. I could see Dryden going to Kennedy, Dion, or Rae. Brison is really the only one I can see going to Ignatieff. He might win though by by picking up Rae later on since if Dion and Kennedy combine forces, this could knock off Rae.
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Monkey Loves to Fight, at 12:43 a.m.
Engaging in some uninformed speculation for a moment :), my guess is that the Liberal party membership is more ideologically aligned with almost anyone other than Ignatieff.
If this race comes down to who you feel more comfortable with ideologically, I think Rae and Dion come on the right side (or left side, ha ha) of that one. The question for Liberals them becomes whether or not they're comfortable with a former NDP premier as their leader. If they're not, then Dion's the guy who can hang on until a later ballot and win this thing.
My current uninformed sense is that Liberals aren't as uncomfortable with Rae as they once were, but there still may be enough natural resistance to the idea of his leadership for Dion to become even more attractive to people at some point.
That is, of course, if Iggy doesn't have a large first ballot lead, which some of the recent evidence suggests might be the case.
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Dennis (Second Thots), at 1:56 a.m.
Continued good work, CG. I think you've got it about right although I still maintain we've all underestimated Rae's first ballot pull. I had him at 19-20 but now probably even a bit higher at 20-23% of first ballot delegates.
Ted
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Ted Betts, at 2:00 a.m.
If you want my uninformed speculation, I say Dryden goes Ignatieff, Brison goes Kennedy, Volpe goes to whoever can beat Iggy, and Martha goes Dion.
Then, whichever two of Kennedy/Dion/Rae don't make the last ballot, probably release their delegates to vote as they see fit (or maybe support whoever is against Iggy).
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calgarygrit, at 4:45 a.m.
Dryden goes to Ignatieff? Kenny the child indoctrinator? The king of Big Government? Don't see it.
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Peter, at 7:59 a.m.
You are hillarious. Do you think Ekos and Stategic council might have a little bit better methodology than your gut feeling? Just a little maybe. My you do think a lot of yourself. You just don't like the results of numerous polls of Canadains. Three now from three different polling firms at three different times showing that Canadians overwhelmingly want Dryden to be leader.
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S.K., at 9:06 a.m.
The Liberal Party of Canada, a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Corporation.
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Peter, at 10:11 a.m.
I would tend to put CG's methodology up against Ekos and SC any day of the week. While he may be biased to Kennedy that is an open bias and on something like this I would expect it to have only a minor effect on him. He has made a HUGE effort to offer up something actually statistically valid and not just a name recognition beauty pagent using questionable sample selection and preselected conclusions.
I would take CG over Gregg on this one any day of the week.
That said, I will still be shocked if Rae is anywhere over 10%.
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Aristo, at 11:50 a.m.
anonymous; I'm almost positive that Kennedy will come out of this weekend with more delegates than Dion. I don't think that's a bias on my part, but just based on the ground game and air game of both teams. The Dion people have been more succesful at getting media and the Kennedy people have been more succesful at selling membership forms.
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calgarygrit, at 1:41 p.m.
I've been talking to federal Liberals about the Rae campaign, which has surprised so many of us with its strength. Something has recently become strongly apparent: Rae enjoys the active support and backing of nearly the whole Chretien PMO. If Rae is elected leader, what we're really looking at is a Restoration of the court of Jean Chretien. The question then becomes: Is that what we want for the Party and the nation?
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Jay, at 4:00 p.m.
What worries me is that a Back to the Future Chretien II era could mean another dozen years of policy stasis. Chretien did nothing (nothing. NOTHING) about climate change, he didn't act on child care, he had no strategy for dealing with Quebec secessionists other than Dion's Clarity Act (which will not be enough!) -- I could go on at length. Martin fumbled the ball politically, but he was clearly a reformer at heart. I don't think we can afford another small-c conservative government devoted to creating as little change as possible, and to cautiously back-burnering every issue it could get away with back-burnering, which is what the Chretien era was. Don't we all keep saying we need both Party and national renewal?
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Jay, at 4:52 p.m.
So its turning in the Rosedale/Forest-Hill candidate vs. the Desmarais candidate.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
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godot10, at 5:11 p.m.
Hmm, my naive opinion is with ElectGerardKennedy. I'm bitterly disappointed in Chretien's PMship, but if another leader - that is, leader - can use those people with a real vision to change things, hey, I'd be happy.
I'm not convinced that Rae is exactly that person - we'll see. But having Chretien's team isn't a bad thing to me. (Although certainly his ideas and, as Jay says, stagnation, would be near-disastrous.
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Jacques Beau Vert, at 7:55 p.m.
CG,
Any chance you could do a post on "How they could win this thing"... I know people could easily talk about how Rae or Iggy could win it, but I would like maybe a post on how Kennedy, Dion or even Dryden could possibly win. Who's support is likely to go to Kennedy, and how could he get to the 50% margin?
I think it would be an interesting post. Personally, I don't see how Iggy gets past 30%... it's possible his name might not even be on the last ballot. So who would his support go to?
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Forward Looking Canadian, at 8:10 p.m.
As for later ballot growth, I cannot see Brison going to Rae considering that Brison is on the right of the party while rae is on the left.
If Brison concludes (at whatever point he drops out) that Rae is going to win over Iggy, then he will support Rae. There's no advantage to supporting a candidate you're closer to on policy if he's not going to be the leader.
Plan: Win
Back-up plan: Play Kingmaker
Last resort: Get on bandwagon
Candidate nightmare: back the loser
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Reality Bites, at 9:00 p.m.
riley; Once the delegate meetings are over, I'll do something like this but I think it would be premature to go over all those theories now before we know where the delegate totals will be on the first ballot.
reality bites; Brison supported Jim Prentice last time even though everyone assumed MacKay would win. I wouldn't say he'll neccesarily only back someone who he thinks will win.
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calgarygrit, at 9:14 p.m.
"Brison supported Jim Prentice last time even though everyone assumed MacKay would win."
Ah, yes. And it's true that MacKay was the presumed frontrunner all the way through the convention.
But after Brison threw to Prentice, few thought that MacKay had much growth left. And even fewer really expected Orchard to fall to MacKay. Most expected Orchard to release his supporters, who would have been expected to split about 70:30 for Prentice, giving Jim the crown and making Scott a Kingmaker. He wasn't backing Prentice to support a losing candidate.
Instead, David actively declared support for Peter, and his loyal following largely followed his stated intent. (Some went home.)
Still, there are candidate declarations and there are delegates. And different candidates will hold the loyalty of their troops to differing degrees. Some candidates will declare for one candidate while their supporters in the large vote for another. This, too, should be accounted in the more detailed speculation.
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Paul, at 9:29 p.m.
paul; You're definitely right and that's what often gets overshadowed in these things. In a race like this where most delegates have only been supporting their candidate for a few months, it's unlikely that there's intense loyalty to them there. So if your candidate endorses someone you're not a big fan of, most delegates won't follow him/her.
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calgarygrit, at 9:57 p.m.
Two things:
- Any praise of the Chretien years has to keep in mind that the opposition was essentially split three ways. Although it takes skill to run government regardless of the opposition, it makes things much easier when the guys voters have to compare you with look like a bunch of clowns.
Harper has had significantly fewer votes in Ontario than the combined votes on the right in the three previous elections before he became leader, yet he got handfuls of seats, while his predecessors got one or two at best.
That Chretien lived during sweet times like that is something that I think puts his legacy in some perspective. In this regard, no one had it as good as he had. I mean, he kept winning every seat in Ontario. You could have thrown Red Green as leader of a merged party during those years and he would have taken away some seats from Chretien in Ontario. Sheesh.
- If there is indeed a gap between where the candidates swing there support and who their delegates ultimately decide to support, again, I have to think Michael Ignatieff becomes a loser in that game. The membership hates Bush, Harper, or anyone who kind of smells like either. I think many of them would rather go for a lefty than someone like Iggy. Just a mood I'm sensing out there. It's also what the polls seem to be saying, too.
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Dennis (Second Thots), at 10:38 p.m.
There are a lot of candidates still in this race.
It reminds me more of the Progressive Conservative leadership convention of 1976.
At that convention, no one even considered Joe Clark going into the convention weekend.
It was all about stopping Claude Ryan. (read Ignatieff)
The second choice wasn't all that appealing either (read Rae here).
Clark was the fourth or 5th choice going into the convention and wound up winning.
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Down & Out in L A, at 10:59 p.m.
There are a lot of candidates still in this race.
It reminds me more of the Progressive Conservative leadership convention of 1976.
At that convention, no one even considered Joe Clark going into the convention weekend.
It was all about stopping Claude Ryan. (read Ignatieff)
The second choice wasn't all that appealing either (read Rae here).
Clark was the fourth or 5th choice going into the convention and wound up winning.
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Down & Out in L A, at 11:01 p.m.
Good work on this CG.
Over at my blog, I am talking (far less scientifically) about just super weekend - not the convention.
Do you agree that Kennedy will be in a strong second from elected delegates? If so, could the media's interpretation of Rae coming in below "expectations" derail his campaign??
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nbpolitico, at 11:27 p.m.
Kennedy's memberships are seriously questionable in my riding. Seriously. Many of them have been challenged. His numbers aren't what they really are.
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S.K., at 11:29 p.m.
Miles said,
"I cannot believe that still 7% of party members are dumb enough to support Joe Volpe."
I can't believe Miles that you are dumb enough to keep taking shots. I had previously thought you were half intelligent, but your comment makes me question whether i overestimated you.
By
kenlister1, at 4:47 p.m.
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