{"id":69827,"date":"2017-02-07T12:26:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T12:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/?p=69827"},"modified":"2017-02-07T12:26:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T12:26:22","slug":"fundraising-data-suggests-bernier-could-benefit-most-from-ranked-conservative-leadership-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/fundraising-data-suggests-bernier-could-benefit-most-from-ranked-conservative-leadership-vote.html","title":{"rendered":"Fundraising data suggests Bernier could benefit most from ranked Conservative leadership vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Conservative leadership race will be decided by a preferential ballot, so the candidate\u00a0with the broadest support and widest acceptability stands the best chance of winning. An analysis of fundraising data in the campaign suggests Maxime Bernier shares the most contributors with other candidates, giving him a potentially decisive edge.<\/p>\n<p>But Bernier&#8217;s\u00a0advantage might\u00a0have been disrupted by the entry of Kevin O&#8217;Leary into the race in January.<\/p>\n<p>Only money\u00a0raised up to the end of 2016, before O&#8217;Leary\u00a0announced his candidacy,\u00a0has so far been released in Elections Canada&#8217;s tally.<\/p>\n<p>The party&#8217;s\u00a0use of a preferential ballot to choose its next leader makes it particularly difficult to predict\u00a0the outcome. The candidate who comes out on top on the first ballot may not end up winning\u00a0if he or she isn&#8217;t\u00a0the second, third or even fourth choice of enough voters.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong>Kevin O&#8217;Leary\u00a0targeted at Conservative leadership debate<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>The\u00a0<span>Pollcast<\/span>:\u00a0<a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Does leadership race polling mean anything?<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Party members will be able to rank the candidates on their ballot. If\u00a0none\u00a0receives a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes\u00a0is\u00a0dropped and those votes get\u00a0re-distributed to his or her\u00a0supporters&#8217; second choices. This process continues, with candidates being dropped and their votes re-distributed, until one candidate\u00a0reaches the majority threshold.<\/p>\n<p>There is <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">no reliable polling data available<\/a> to gauge\u00a0which candidate is best-placed to garner the broad\u00a0support needed to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But fundraising data is one substitute. A high proportion of donors will be party members eligible to vote on May 27 and many of these donors have given money to more than one candidate, providing an indication of which candidates are likely to also rank highly on their ballot.<\/p>\n<h2>Bernier or bust<\/h2>\n<p>Bernier\u00a0has raised <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">the most money so far in this campaign<\/a>\u00a0and he&#8217;s done so with contributions\u00a0from 21 per cent of donors who&#8217;ve written a cheque\u00a0to more than one candidate.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/b2507_conservative-shared-donors-2.jpg\" alt=\"Conservative shared donors 2\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">The percentage of each candidate&#8217;s donors (among those who contributed to more than one campaign) that were shared with another candidate.<\/p>\n<p>He was the candidate who shared the most contributors with Steven Blaney, Kellie Leitch and Andrew Scheer, and was especially popular among\u00a0donors to Michael\u00a0Chong, Erin O&#8217;Toole and Lisa Raitt.<\/p>\n<p>But while Bernier had the most multiple-candidate donors, his share of them was disproportionately low compared\u00a0to his total number of contributors. Bernier\u00a0received 39 per cent of all donations made to leadership contestants in 2016, almost double his share of those who contributed to multiple candidates.<\/p>\n<p>If a large proportion of Bernier&#8217;s\u00a0supporters aren&#8217;t contributing to other candidates, it suggests the race might be &#8220;Bernier or bust&#8221; for them.<\/p>\n<h2>Leitch\u00a0has limited growth potential<\/h2>\n<p>Though Leitch was the beneficiary of the second-most multiple-candidate donors at 18 per cent, she was a less popular choice than Bernier\u00a0for supporters of every candidate\u00a0except Chris Alexander.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is a problem for Leitch because it suggests that as candidates drop off the ballot she wouldn&#8217;t\u00a0be able to overtake Bernier (or would fall behind him).\u00a0From one round to the next, he would get a larger share of the second-choice votes.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the rival with whom Leitch\u00a0shared the most contributors (39 per cent of her multiple-candidate donors)\u00a0was Bernier.<\/p>\n<h2>Lemieux, Trost could give Scheer boost<\/h2>\n<p>Saskatchewan MP Scheer\u00a0was the recipient of money from 13 per cent of donors who gave to more than one candidate, despite receiving only seven per cent of all contributions\u00a0made to contestants in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Much of this cross-candidate support came from two fellow social conservative candidates: Brad Trost and Pierre Lemieux. But while Scheer&#8217;s\u00a0campaign has largely avoided issues important to this faction of the party, Trost and Lemieux have embraced them.<\/p>\n<p>Trost ranked behind Bernier and Leitch, with contributions\u00a0from 18 per cent of Scheer&#8217;s multiple-candidate donors, while another seven per cent of these Scheer supporters\u00a0gave to Lemieux as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/43aa9_conservative-leadership-20161206.jpg\" alt=\"Conservative Leadership 20161206\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Scheer, left, Kellie Leitch and Brad Trost square off in a debate in Moncton, N.B., back in December. (Andrew Vaughan\/Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>If Scheer finishes ahead of both Trost and Lemieux (he\u00a0is one of the overall fundraising leaders and has the <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">most endorsements from within the party establishment<\/a>), he should garner a large share of their supporters when they\u00a0drop\u00a0off the ballot. Scheer shared 21 per cent of Trost&#8217;s\u00a0multiple-candidate donors \u2014 more than any other contestant \u2014 \u00a0while 33 per cent of Lemieux&#8217;s\u00a0shared donors gave to Trost.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With the exception of donor connections involving Bernier, Leitch and Chong\u00a0\u2014 who have been in the race the longest and so have amassed the most donors \u2014 the triangle of support between Scheer, Trost and Lemieux was the most significant. This suggests\u00a0the social conservative vote could play an important role in deciding the leadership if it moves towards one candidate.<\/p>\n<h2>Unclear path for Raitt, O&#8217;Toole, Chong<\/h2>\n<p>\u200bThe fundraising data doesn&#8217;t\u00a0show any particularly clear paths for Raitt and\u00a0O&#8217;Toole, who are\u00a0running as consensus centrist candidates,\u00a0or Chong, who is running as the &#8220;progressive&#8221; conservative of the race.\u200b<\/p>\n<p>None of these three candidates did disproportionately well\u00a0with the supporters of any of their rivals, with the exception of Chong with Andrew Saxton\u00a0donors.\u00a0But\u00a0Raitt and O&#8217;Toole did share somewhat more donors with each other, suggesting that whoever ends up higher on the ballot will likely benefit from the other&#8217;s departure.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Raitt and O&#8217;Toole shared more donors with Bernier and (to a lesser extent)\u00a0Leitch than they did with each other \u2014 meaning Bernier\u00a0and Leitch could\u00a0still be the biggest beneficiaries\u00a0whether it&#8217;s\u00a0Raitt or O&#8217;Toole who drops off the ballot first.<\/p>\n<h2>The O&#8217;Leary factor<\/h2>\n<p>The data suggests the outcome of the vote could greatly depend on the order in which the candidates drop off the ballot,\u00a0but also that Bernier\u00a0has the simplest path.\u00a0His ballot-to-ballot growth would be least affected by variations in that order.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/040af_conservative-leadership-debate-20170204.jpg\" alt=\"Conservative Leadership Debate 20170204\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Kevin O&#8217;Leary made his debate debut in the race last weekend in Halifax. (Andrew Vaughan\/Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>But O&#8217;Leary might have changed all that. His appeal to other candidates&#8217; supporters is impossible to gauge at this stage. He might eat\u00a0into Bernier&#8217;s\u00a0support, either as a first preference or further down the ballot. He might become\u00a0the consensus second or third choice of some of Bernier&#8217;s rivals.<\/p>\n<p>And that could have the effect of levelling the playing field\u00a0between the &#8220;safe&#8221; second choices\u00a0and the polarizing\u00a0front-runners proposing big changes of\u00a0direction for the Conservative Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/grenier-conservative-second-choices-1.3963984?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conservative leadership race will be decided by a preferential ballot, so the candidate\u00a0with the broadest support and widest acceptability stands the best chance of winning. An analysis of fundraising data in the campaign suggests Maxime Bernier shares the most contributors with other candidates, giving him a potentially decisive edge. But Bernier&#8217;s\u00a0advantage might\u00a0have been disrupted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-69827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}