The NDP leadership race could be turning into a nail-biter with no clear winner in sight. But it’s unclear if Canadians are tuning in.
The field of candidates now has three front-runners, several NDP strategists and analysts tell CBC News.
Weeks before the critical membership sign-up deadline of Jan. 28, the outcome remains unpredictable, with no particular candidate having a sure path to victory and all showing signs of momentum.
“It is way too early to call it,” said Ji Won Jung, an NDP organizer with the party’s grassroots movement Reclaim Canada’s NDP. “There’s a lot of room for volatility.”
When New Democrats select their leader in March at a national convention in Winnipeg, five candidates are expected to be on the ballot.
But according to party insiders, three are likely bets to become leader: Heather McPherson, Avi Lewis and Rob Ashton.
That wasn’t the case in the early days of the race in September.
“Many folks would have assumed this would be somewhat of a coronation for McPherson because she’s the only sitting MP running,” longtime NDP strategist Erin Morrison said.
Much of McPherson’s campaign has been about presenting her as a stable leader with a proven track record of getting elected and taking on Conservatives in Alberta. Many within the party consider her the establishment candidate, backed by staffers who worked previously for leaders like Jack Layton and Jagmeet Singh.
McPherson, like the other candidates, is in a final push to sign up as many members as possible. The NDP’s one-member, one-vote system makes signing up new members and getting lapsed members to renew critical.
McPherson’s event schedule points to a ground game concentrated in Prairie provinces, particularly Alberta.
The province represents a sizable membership base for New Democrats.
According to some NDP insiders, Alberta, in particular, could have an outsize influence in the race, since provincial New Democrats can easily become members of the federal party.
This could give McPherson, an Edmonton MP who earned the endorsement of former Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley, the upper hand.
NDP leadership candidates weigh in on their struggle to answer questions in French
Neither the federal party nor the Alberta NDP would provide updated membership numbers to CBC News. But more than 85,000 members were eligible to vote in the 2024 race that elected Naheed Nenshi as the Alberta NDP leader and the province’s Opposition leader.
Jordan Leichnitz, a former NDP strategist and frequent panellist on CBC’s Power and Politics, cautions against the assumption that tens of thousands of Alberta NDP members could join the federal party.
“In Alberta, there were significant numbers of people who joined the party in order to vote for Naheed Nenshi,” Leichnitz said. “However, most of those members have lapsed now. So they’re not currently members.”
Plus, Alberta NDP members now have the choice of opting out of federal membership.
Similarly, it might be incorrect to assume British Columbia would deliver a massive amount of votes for Lewis.
Leichnitz notes that Lewis, who previously ran unsuccessfully in Metro Vancouver, “made a lot of enemies” opposing B.C. NDP politicians and policies like criticizing new fossil fuel expansion, such as B.C.’s LNG infrastructure.
Lewis’s campaign does have more polish than the others, with slick online branding and social media videos that resemble those of the Democratic Socialist and populist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary against the odds.
Lewis’s campaign has also borrowed Mamdani’s proposal for government-backed grocery stores, which promise to offer a public option that delivers affordable food staples.
Notably, Lewis has also amassed a strong war chest. According to his campaign, he raised more than $780,000 from donors across Canada as of December — well above the $100,000 entrance fee and nearing the $1.5-million campaign spending limit.
The amount of dollars a leadership candidate can pull in tends to be a strong indicator of who will win.
The other front-runner campaigns have kept their fundraising numbers close to their chests.
Considered underdogs, Tanille Johnston and Tony McQuail are the two other candidates. Both have struggled to raise funds.
Jung is helping on the Johnston campaign and said candidates like her have found it “morally challenging” to ask NDP supporters to help cover the $100,000 entrance fee during a cost-of-living crisis.
“When you come from that working class background… then it’s really hard to talk to a voter or talk to a (NDP) member and ask for hundreds or thousands of dollars, given the state of where we’re at in our economy,” Jung said.
Johnston, who says she’s running to bring about a “working-class renaissance,” has raised enough money to stay in the race. McQuail, who has an environmentally focused campaign, has also cleared the latest financial hurdle.
Both have held joint fundraising events together.
What could matter more are endorsements and the organizing apparatus that comes with them.
A decision by Nenshi, a former popular Calgary mayor and strong political organizer, “could be significant,” according to Leichnitz. However, most indicators suggest Nenshi will remain neutral.
One endorsement that flew under the radar came from the largest private sector union in North America, the United Steelworkers.
The union, with its 225,000 members, announced in December that it was throwing its weight behind Ashton, who is a dockworker and the national president of the International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) in B.C.
Union members are already volunteering for Ashton’s campaign, signing up members, organizing meet-and-greet events in local union halls and making phone calls.
“That’s a major get,” Leichnitz said, noting that institutional labour capacity has helped boost the profile of Ashton, who entered the race as a relatively unknown labour leader.
While the NDP leadership campaign has the makings of a compelling political news story, for those outside the party, it’s hard to tell.
The race has been competing for the headlines amid a news cycle dominated by the never-ending saga of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war and the Carney government’s attempt to dramatically retool the Canadian economy, making it less dependent on the U.S.
Candidates and their campaign teams may not have helped themselves, seemingly opting for civility instead of conflict.
Such a wholesome race could be distilled into a moment during the Montreal debate when one candidate, farmer Tony McQuail, gave each of his opponents a jar of homemade apple butter.
While it was a gracious gesture, the race overall has left the impression that New Democrats, after their abysmal election result, are drifting further into irrelevance.
Former NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen reiterated his frustration expressed in 2011 that the party seems to be once again in “violent agreement.”
In a recent interview with CBC News, Cullen said New Democrats he has spoken with are asking: “Where’s the fire?”
“That ability to show good contrast.… It may be a bit of an untapped piece right now,” Cullen said. “A candidate who is able to respectfully and thoughtfully challenge his opponents would be welcomed.”
There are signs the race could be heating up, with Ashton accusing Lewis of dividing the party by opposing fossil fuel expansion.
“Avi takes us in the wrong direction,” Ashton said in a recent social media video. “His kind of politics turns New Democrats against each other.”
