Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Attempting to handicap the Liberal race - Premier Falcon?

I am now becoming convinced that Kevin Falcon will be our next premier.

It is a complete mugs game to try and predict the vote as I have only limited data to work with.

What we know:
35,000 people were members before the race started
90,000 people are members now
Mike de Jong claims 12,000 new members (new info as of Wed Feb 9th)
Kevin Falcon claims 17,500 new members
Christy Clark is said to have 20,000 new members
Another 7,500 people are floaters

Of the existing members, I see the break down as 40% Abbott, 30% Falcon, 25% Clark.   This gives us Abbott 14,000, Falcon  10,500, and Clark 8,750.

Many of the 'other' 5000 are old members renewing - people like myself.   I am allocating them 1500 each to the main front runners.

Raw Member support numbers:

  • Clark - 30,250 - 34%
  • Falcon - 29,500 - 33%
  • Abbott - 15,5000 - 17%
  • de Jong - 12,000 - 13%

Now this means very little on its own as the vote is based on 85 ridings and not total membership.    Given that all the campaigns knew which ridings had the smallest memberships and therefore were the easiest to win, I do not think there will be nearly a glaring a difference in membership in the ridings now as there was before the race.

I see George Abbott having a good base support from strong existing local riding association members held by the MLAs backing him.   I am adding 3% to his vote for this.

Kevin Falcon seems to have spent more energy outside of the Lower Mainland than Christy Clark.  I am adding 2% to his vote for him for that.

I do not see Mike de Jong's support being strategic enough to help him gain in the vote.  I could be wrong, if I am I would love for someone to send me the evidence.

I am not getting the sense that Christy Clark has the province wide network needed to benefit in this vote.  I am dropping her by 4% primarily to compensate for the candidates that I think have a better distribution.

Where we are at:

  • Falcon - 35%
  • Clark - 30%
  • Abbott - 20%
  • de Jong - 13%
  • Stillwell and Mayne - 1%

So first to drop off will be Mike de Jong - where will his second votes go?   His new members are heavily part of the Indo-Canadian community.   In some ways it likely does not matter where they go because he will not have enough votes to put Abbott into second place and not enough to allow Falcon to win.   It is also unlikely his support would be enough to put Clark ahead of Falcon.
  • Falcon - 37% - 41%
  • Clark - 32% - 35%
  • Abbott - 22% - 24%
So next to drop off would be Abbott.   Unless more than 60% of his support goes to Christy Clark, ideally more than 70%, Kevin Falcon wins.  I see the Abbott supporters being the most independent block of voters and not one that would break that strongly for one candidate or another.  I see the split most likely being 55/45 in Falcon's direction.

1 comment:

e.a.f. said...

reading the "handicap" was interesting. Of course we will have to wait and see.
What concerns me most is the "newly" signed members. How many of them are actually legitimate and how many are fakes.
Signing a document which some one else's name is usually referred to as fraud. So will we be seeing a premier elected by fraud?
Of course that would fit in quite nicely with the money laundering at the casinos.
The people of Eygpt might have had the best idea of how to acquire a new leader.