August 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election

[Don Vito Corleone]

I'm quite surprised that poll has MacKay winning with only 41% support on the first ballot. I suppose the preferences aren't as bad for him as I thought, because I was thinking if he got below like 45% he would be DOA.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Good lord, O'Toole nearly got 60%! It almost makes me wonder what the future of the party is. Evidently, MacKay was too left-wing for the Tory grassroots (granted, his campaign didn't do him any favours). But aside from that, I think the real issue is that an O'Toole victory is doubling down on the grievance campaign they ran last time, and which I really cannot see going well next time.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I would agree with that take (especially the last bit). Frankly, I would not be shocked in the least if O'Toole pulled a Patrick Brown and suddenly reverted back into his 2017 self (or further!). Even still, I have a little bit of difficulty picturing him actually winning an election, and I do think MacKay was their best leader electability wise. But yeah, definitely an improvement on Andrew Scheer.

[Don Vito Corleone]

So, is that the end of Peter MacKay's political career? Certainly, I don't think anyone expects him to ever become leader, but is his entire career done now? An interesting thought to consider would be MacKay running in Central Nova as he said he would in the next election and then losing (which I don't think would be that unlikely, the Liberals won it by a good margin in 2019 and their Atlantic Support is holding up according to polling), which would definitely be the end of his career in politics, and a very sorry end at that.

[Don Vito Corleone]

It wasn't that long ago people were writing the Liberal Party's obituary. Especially in a country like Canada, which is so prone to wild swings, I would advise against making long term predictions like that.