Kellie Leitch is now the first choice for over one-fifth of Conservative party members, passing Maxime Bernier and nipping at the heels of an increasingly polarizing Kevin O’Leary campaign, according to the latest iPolitics CPC Leadership Tracker — powered by Mainstreet Research.

Mainstreet reached 804 members between February 9 and 12 and found — with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20 — that Kevin O’Leary was the first choice for 22.01 per cent of members, followed by Leitch (20.90 per cent), and Bernier (17.54 per cent).

The first leadership poll, conducted between January 5 and February 3, sampling 5,487 Conservative members, had O’Leary at 24.5 per cent, Bernier at 16.55 per cent, and Leitch at 10.83.

At the same time, the number of undecided members is up from 10.6 per cent to 11.8.

Even taking into account the margin of error, Leitch has surged. Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi thinks Leitch’s rise could have to do with the heated debate over the Liberals’ Islamophobia motion and President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

Having stood firm despite the backlash against her policy proposal to screen every immigrant and visitor to Canada for ‘Canadian values’, Leitch is now benefiting from the support of members who are most worried about immigration.

As iPolitics reported earlier this week, almost seven in 10 Leitch supporters are in favour of a Canadian version of Trump’s embattled executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

“Because she has been the one to plant her flag firmly on that (values) policy, anyone who’s now of like mind is returning to Kellie Leitch,” Maggi said. “This is a seismic shift. This is now a three-way race.”

Arguably a more a troubling finding for the O’Leary campaign, however, is the rise in the number of Conservative party members who rank him as their last choice.

“The most dramatic number out of this is in the least likely, where O’Leary now leads. This really represents a turning point. Kellie Leitch has led that number from the beginning of January all the way to February 3, when we stopped the initial sample,” Maggi said.

“Now, for O’Leary to be leading this category, it’s huge. He’s still the frontrunner, but it’s more the implication of — what does it do to his growth possibility? This is a common frontrunner phenomenon.”

O’Leary is now the last choice for 22.09 per cent of members, whereas Leitch is the last choice for 21.12 per cent.

This poll, however, was conducted before the leadership debate Monday night in which O’Leary declared the new Conservative party was going to be pro-choice, pro-marijuana legalization and an ardent defender of the LGBTQI community.

“God only knows what the next numbers are going to reflect after Conservatives have had time to digest O’Leary’s positions … whether ideologically he’s now pushing away more Conservative members than attracting,” Maggi said.

Maggi added that he’s been told the final membership is likely to be somewhere between 150,000 to 180,000 — 60,000 to 90,000 of them new members.

“Leaderships are not big-tent campaigns. Leaderships are small-tent campaigns,” Maggi said.

“For O’Leary to have chance of winning this on one of the first couple of ballots, he’s going to have to sell an overwhelming majority of those new memberships, because it looks for now like the existing membership base is turning against him.”

Since the Conservative leadership race allocates 100 points to each riding, regardless of its number of members, that overall member support number does need to be considered along with the first-ballot preference as a percentage of points.

This poll’s smaller sample size did not allow for that, but subsequent polls will.

The iPolitics CPC Leadership Tracker, powered by Mainstreet, will be tracking the Conservative leadership race until members pick the next leader on May 27. For additional information on methodology and to subscribe to in-depth updates, click here.