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Even before that overwrought activist-heckler accosted Singh with shouts about Muslims and Shariah at a Brampton meet-and-greet last Wednesday, and before the video “went viral” with more than 35 million views owing to Singh’s gracefully unrattled response, something odd was happening in the contest to replace NDP leader Tom Mulcair. Only a month ago, Singh was badly trailing the three accomplished NDP MPs he’s up against—Charlie Angus, Niki Ashton and Guy Caron. In a Mainstreet Research poll of the NDP membership carried out September 7-9, Singh had already flipped the numbers.

Singh is sweeping up the hipsters and millennials

In early August, Mainstreet put Singh’s first-choice support at 8.9 per cent, with Angus well ahead at 28 per cent. Mainstreet’s latest poll leaves Angus with 25 per cent, but Singh has taken 27.3 per cent. The youthful Corbyn-fancier Niki Ashton (“When they privatize, we nationalize”) dropped from 17 per cent to 13 per cent, and Quebec’s Guy Caron dropped from 10.7 per cent to 9.8 per cent.

The undecided bloc still makes up 25 per cent of eligible NDP voters, and Singh faces a bareknuckle fight for second-choice ballots. But the interesting bit is that Singh is sweeping up the hipsters and millennials. He’s the first choice of 60 per cent of New Democrats under the age of 50.

This is not at all what the NDP’s comically backward-looking Socialist Caucus wanted to see, and it’s not what the related Corbynite “NDP Momentum” crowd wanted, and the Israeli Apartheid hobbyists and the Chavistas are similarly out of sorts. They all prefer Ashton.