Liberal campaigns count on math and strategy to win over delegates

With the Liberal leadership race heating up, candidates are jockeying for position in the hopes of electing as many delegate candidates as possible.

The crucial stage in the Liberal leadership campaign comes before delegates are selected to represent candidates in local elections throughout the province on Feb. 8 and 9. In these delegate election meetings, the six leadership campaigns will vie for 16 possible delegates in Ontario's 124 ridings, with additional delegates for a handful of student and women's clubs. That arcane selection process will rely on a great deal of campaign organizational acumen, grassroots support and more than a little math to maximize political opportunities.

Steven Del Duca will enter the critical weekend as the consensus frontrunner, with 52 per cent of the delegate candidates representing his candidacy. That does not, however, mean that he'll leave the weekend with 52 per cent of the delegates, which would be enough to lock up a first ballot victory at the Liberal convention on March 7.

Instead, close attention will be paid to who gets what proportion of support in each riding, where fractions can often make a meaningful difference to a candidate's delegate count.

With the most delegate candidates going into the weekend, the Del Duca campaign is feeling confident. It is fielding 2,684 delegate candidates for the 1,984 available slots in the hopes of overwhelming the field with a show of force. That includes 16 or more delegate candidates in a majority of the province's ridings, according to a preliminary document obtained by QP Briefing that shows the distribution of candidates by riding. The Del Duca campaign has eight or more delegate candidates in every riding in the province, giving them a chance to rack up big numbers in areas where they do particularly well.

The Michael Coteau campaign is touting itself as the best alternative to Del Duca based on fundraising, delegate candidates and other campaign metrics. Aside from Del Duca, it is the only campaign running delegate candidates in every riding. But while their numbers are spread across ridings, in many places it doesn't have the volume of delegate candidates in place to necessarily capitalize on support. That includes 23 ridings where the campaign only has one or two delegate candidates. In Oxford, Sarnia-Lambton, Perth-Wellington, Timmins, York-South Weston and Timiskaming-Cochrane the campaign only has one delegate candidate. That could change as the Coteau campaign fights to have some delegate candidates included who may have been improperly ruled ineligible due to paperwork or human error. But if the status quo remains that could become an obstacle for the Coteau campaign to rack up delegate counts. 

Take the example of Kiiwetinong, the northern riding where 16 delegate spots are up for grabs. The Del Duca campaign leads the way with 15 delegate candidates, while the Kate Graham campaign has eight and the Coteau campaign has one. If Coteau earned 25 per cent of the support in this riding, he could have earned as many as four delegate candidates (with 16 delegates available every 6.25 percentage points support gets one delegate, subject to rounding rules). But Coteau would only have one delegate candidate there to go to the convention. Every campaign can also backfill up to two delegates in a given riding if they earn more than the number of delegate candidates they have available in a riding. However, there's a limit of 50 of these backfills for any given campaign.

The Coteau campaign told QP Briefing that it's confident it won't need to exhaust its available backfills. It added that it's hopeful independent delegates will bolster its total and that it hopes to add more delegate candidates to the preliminary numbers, pending party approval.

"We’re excited to have over 1,200 Liberals running as delegates for Michael Coteau across every riding in the province," stated Jonathan Scott from the Coteau campaign. "We believe we are well positioned to elect Michael Coteau as our new leader."

The Graham campaign will enter the weekend in what campaign spokesperson Emily Feairs calls a "strong third place," with more delegate candidates than the likes of MPP Mitzie Hunter, or Alvin Tedjo and Brenda Hollingsworth.

"Kate is feeling very excited and proud," Feairs said, describing the mood on the campaign. She expressed optimism that despite being behind Del Duca and Coteau in delegate candidate counts, there's a path for the campaign to win. "Historically it's not often that the frontrunner in delegates is the one that gets coronated," adding that their campaign believes the convention will see multiple ballots. "A lot happens on the floor," she said, invoking the idea that the ability to inspire members at the convention will be an important factor to build momentum, much like Kathleen Wynne did in 2013.

The Graham campaign also has broad distribution of its delegate candidates, with some overweighting in areas like her backyard of London and strength in southwestern Ontario. However, in 59 ridings she has one or two delegate candidates, potentially leaving some numbers on the table for her campaign.

The Graham and Coteau campaigns point out that the converse is true for Del Duca — that the big show of force means that hundreds of his delegate candidates will not be able to go to the convention regardless of the outcome on Feb. 8 and 9, and that big surpluses like he has in some ridings means that his allocations are inefficient. That is, there is little point in having over 40 delegate candidates in a riding where only 16 delegates will go to the convention.