Tonight's prediction

First off, does anyone know the results of the Lord Roberts vote yesterday?

Now, let's get down to business.

I was pretty close in predicting MLA endorsements for the leadership candidates. Let’s see how I do with riding association voting.

On paper, River Heights and Fort Rouge should be a battle between Selinger and Swan but it will not be the case. Swan will be shut out again.

As was seen during Sunday’s vote in Charleswood, Tuxedo and Assiniboia (where Selinger picked up the support of 29 delegates and Ashton picked up the support of 12 Tuxedo delegates), the race will be between Selinger and Ashton.

What seems to be happening here is that the established members are supporting Selinger and to a lesser extend Swan, while many of the newly signed members are supporting Ashton. (NOTE: Swan will get the support of delegates but he will have to wait until at least Wednesday when Kildonan votes).

With the backing of Fort Rouge MLA Jennifer Howard and the make-up of the members(Curtis appropriately called them white wine socialists) Selinger should be able to take Fort Rouge fairly easily.

With no NDP MLA, River Heights could be a bit tricky to call. Like many other ridings, the membership in River Heights has more than doubled over the last three weeks. It is possible that Ashton has signed up enough new members to repeat Tuxedo but I’ll predict that Selinger will have enough support to take this one.

Interesting figures:
In August, the NDP had 5,500 members. They now have 14,000.
Liberals currently have 5,100 members.
Tories currently have 6,000 members. They had 21,000 during their leadership race in 2006.

Conclusion:
1. The NDP were completely unprepared and complacent with renewing memberships.

2. The Tories were able to sign up many more members during their leadership race. This is surprising since the NDP is choosing the next Premier and have a real race on their hands. I’m going to suggest that the short time frame for signing up members and the confusing delegate style system is the culprit. The NDP should seriously reconsider changing back to a one-member, one-vote system.