Total votes and points:
Aitchison 4,947 votes (1.18%), 356.66 points (1.06%)
Baber 22,380 (5.36%), 1,696.76 (5.03%)
Charest 48,651 (11.65%), 5,421.62 (16.07%)
Lewis 46,374 (11.10%), 3,269.54 (9.69%)
Poilievre 295,283 (70.07%), 22,993.42 (68.15%)
To me anyway, Charest underperformed as badly as Charlie Angus did.
I think Charest performed as expected. Party is a lot more conservative than one he led in 1997 and likewise its centre of power is in Prairies not Quebec so a Quebec Red Tory was always going to have a tough time winning. Peter MacKay was probably only one from old PCs who maybe could pull off a win and fact he couldn't I think was sign anyone with PC roots at least if known (O'Toole comes from former PCs but most didn't know it at time) cannot win today's Conservative leadership.
Likewise anyone from Quebec needs to be a libertarian like such as Bernier or Duhaime. A Mulroney or Legault type cannot win in present day party
As with Truss/Sunak earlier this month, it also seems that the overwhelming perception that the race would be merely a formality coronating Crypto Bro Incel Mass Shooter Pierre Poilievre, which took hold as the Narrative extremely early on, was very influential in that it dissuaded support for the other candidates through the mindset of "everyone else is in the tank for Poilievre, why bother supporting someone who's a lost cause?" even if those other people were thinking the same thing. Ultimately "electability" is as much a mental fiction created by what we think other people will think as something that exists ipso facto on its own merit.
