Thursday, October 1, 2009

Half-way point

First, let’s start with an update. Selinger has taken 61 of the 71 delegates in Inkster. He also took Dauphin-Roblin, Kirkfield Park, La Verendrye and Wolseley.

And this brings us to the halfway point of the delegate selection process.

So far just over 1,000 delegates have been chosen at the constituency level (42 of 57 ridings).

This leaves about 1,000 delegates to go including:

- 326 delegates at the constituency level

UPDATE: About 250 left with Interlake, St. Norbert, Wellington and Point Douglas having gone Oct 1.

-107 at MYND

-430 at Labour

-214 super delegates

From what I can tell, Ashton has the support of about 35 % of the delegates chosen at the constituency level to date, while Selinger has the support of about 65 %.

To win, Ashton would need to sweep The Maples, Interlake and Fort Whyte (205) which is possible.

But he would also need to pick up at least half of MYND, half of the Labour delegates and half of the Super Delegates as well as a few more constituencies such as Brandon, St. Norbert, Wellington and Lac du Bonnet.

Selinger’s road to victory is much easier. He needs to pick up half of MYND/Labour/Super Delegates and to be safe a couple constituencies such as Brandon.

The Yellow Snow decision desk is not ready to call this one yet (since I’ve under estimated Ashton throughout this process) but it’s getting close.

3 comments:

  1. I was surprised by how well Selinger did in Inkster, where I thought Ashton's organization was strong. It may be that Swan's decision to drop out represents a decisive turning point in the campaign toward Selinger. Ashton may sweep the Maples and Fort Whyte, but I'm betting that Selinger will easily take a majority of the youth delegates and get an overwhelming share of the labour and automatic delegates. If I can be so bold as to hazard a prediction, I'd say Selinger wins with about 65% to Ashton's 35%.

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  2. Ashton will get very low support from the super delegates. He'll pick up a decent number of youth due to the tuition freeze issue, and a decent number of labour delegates. However, I think Selinger has this thing pretty locked up.

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  3. Mark my words -- there's NO way Selinger will take the majority of the youth delegates. Not that it will likely matter.

    As of Thursday, Selinger had wrapped up something in the neighbourhood of 670 to 690 delegates, including committed super delegates. Ashton has less than 400 -- or 400 at best.

    To win, Selinger needs to take a little over a third of the remaining delegates. Ashton needs to take a good two-thirds of the remaining delegates. The Maples plus Fort Whyte plus a majority of the union and youth delegates would put Ashton closer, but he would still need to pull a big surprise somewhere in order to stay competitive.

    Assume Selinger wins (I predict Selinger will have about 4 delegates for every 3 of Ashton's). He'll be able to say he succeeded in a tough-fought battle. Selinger doesn't exactly have buckets of charisma, so by presenting him with a tough opponent, Ashton will have given him an opportunity to build some leadership credibility. Ashton will have also stirred up a whole bunch of new members, and activated the traditional base of the party just when the party needs it the most. If Selinger and Ashton can then play nice together (and rumour has it, these two get along just fine) this race may end up being the best thing for the party. I think they will go into the next election better off than had Doer remained.

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