Conservative Party of Canada Leadership Race Megathread-May 27th 2017

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O'Toole has now more support among MPs than Scheer. It doesn't seem to make much difference so far.

The last Mainstreet poll that was quoted showed Andrew Scheer finally starting to break through. Likely because he is presently seen as the 'establishment candidate.'  I wouldn't be surprised if many of those Conservatives start to migrate over to Erin O'Toole.

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There is approximately 13 or 14 candidates for the Conservative Party of Canada's leadership and Kevin O'Leary, considered as the Canadian Trump, is leading by a few percentage points in the polls. Will some of the candidates drop out in order to coalesce the anti-O'Leary vote?

The deadline to drop out and not appear on the ballot has already passed.  I believe there may also have been a financial reward (getting some money back) for any candidate who dropped out on or before the deadline.

So, I don't expect anybody to quit.

The candidates seem to be hanging on to the famous words of 'Babe Ruth':  "It ain't over til it's over."

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so most popular candidate droping out? smart move for party...

The closest parallel I'm aware of is in the 1995 NDP leadership race when Svend Robinson dropped out after leading on the first ballot.

Same reason as well, a lack of secondary support.

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If anybody cares, I think Bernier is right on about 80% of his economic ideas, and he would be a 'breath of fresh air' in terms of opening up debates, but he's simply too much of an ideologue to be Prime Minister.

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Just realized that if Bernier wins, all parties but the Greens will be led by Quebecers: Trudeau from Papineau, Mulcair from Outremont, Bernier from Beauce and the Bloc.

Mulcair wont' be leader in the next election though.

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http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2017/policy-making-and-the-conservative-party/

Policy making and the Conservative Party by Rachel Curran

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My final prediction, with the relevant ballots.

First Ballot
1.Maxime Bernier, 31.2%
2.Andrew Scheer, 15.6
3.Erin O'Toole, 11.8
4.Kellie Leitch, 10.1
5.Lisa Raitt, 8.4
6.Michael Chong, 7.6
7.Brad Trost, 5.9
8.Steven Blaney, 3.5
9.Chris Alexander, 2.9
10.Pierre Lemieux, 1.8
11.Deepak Obhrai, 0.5
12.Andrew Saxton, 0.3
13.Rick Peterson 0.3

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Subsequent ballots
1.Maxime Bernier, 32.1%
2.Andrew Scheer, 16.5
3.Erin O'Toole, 13.9
4.Kellie Leitch, 12.9
5.Lisa Raitt, 9.0
6.Michael Chong, 7.9
7.Brad Trost, 7.7

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1.Maxime Bernier, 36.3%
2.Andrew Scheer, 20.4
3.Erin O'Toole, 16.5
4.Kellie Leitch, 14.9
5.Lisa Raitt, 11.9

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1.Maxime Bernier, 41.7%
2.Andrew Scheer, 33.3
3.Erin O'Toole, 25.0

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Final Ballot
1.Maxime Bernier, 53.6%
2.Andrew Scheer, 46.4

I don't normally like to gloat, and obviously the real balloting hasn't occurred yet, but LOL to all those who said that Maxime Bernier was regarded as a joke by all Conservatives outside of his own riding of Beauce.