How the NDP leadership vote broke down, ballot by ballot

Avi Lewis was the top second choice of three of four of his opponents' supporters

(Apologies to readers for two newsletters in a single day, but this just dropped in my inbox!)

On Sunday, Avi Lewis won 56% of the vote on the first ballot of the NDP leadership race. Heather McPherson finished second with 29.5%, followed by Tanille Johnston at 7.3%, Rob Ashton at 5.9% and Tony McQuail with 1.3%.

The NDP leadership vote was a ranked ballot, meaning members could rank as many of the five candidates as they liked on their vote. But since Lewis won on the first ballot, it was not necessary to go to a second, third or fourth to determine a winner.

But that doesn’t mean the results weren’t recorded.

Today, I was provided with a ballot-by-ballot break down of the NDP leadership vote by one of the leadership campaigns. They show how each candidate’s voters ranked the other candidates from first to fifth.

The data shows that Lewis had broad support from each of the camps and was the top second choice of the supporters of McPherson, Johnston and McQuail, with only more of Ashton’s supporters ranking McPherson second. The results also show that more members ranked Lewis at least somewhere on their ballot than any other candidate, and that he had more first ballot support than any candidate had combined first and second choice support.

Let’s get into the numbers.