Maxime Bernier has an 85 per cent chance of becoming the next Conservative leader this weekend in Toronto, according to the final iPolitics CPC Leadership Tracker, powered by Mainstreet Research.

But Mainstreet President and CEO Quito Maggi said that when votes are tabulated Saturday, he expects 11 or 12 counts before Bernier finally edges out Andrew Scheer.

Based on 1,000 simulations of ballot movements as candidates drop off, Mainstreet gives Bernier an 85.34 per cent chance of winning, and Scheer 14.66 per cent.

O’Toole has a 95 per cent chance of finishing third — but the people filling the fourth through seventh positions are much less clear.

“In the simulations, 50 per cent of the time it goes 11 counts and 50 per cent of the time it goes 12 counts. The first six counts are practically irrelevant, because those first five, six counts don’t cause a lot of movement,” Maggi said.

Bernier’s extremely favourable odds are driven by a few things: strong first-ballot support, a lead in every demographic, and dominance in Quebec.

For its final poll, from May 20 to 23, Mainstreet reached 12,840 party members and found — with a margin of error of +/- 0.84%, 19 times out of 20 — that 31.30 per cent are ranking Bernier first on their ballot while 17.20 per cent are picking Scheer first, followed by O’Toole (12.90 per cent), Chong (9.50 per cent) and Leitch (6.80 per cent).

Among those who’ve already voted (as of a week ago, 48 per cent of eligible voters had already cast their ballots), those numbers don’t change much: Bernier has slightly higher first-choice support (33.78 per cent), Scheer is at 17.79 per cent and O’Toole is at 13.32 per cent.

“The Quebec thing is really the single biggest factor. He’s almost got 50 per cent of the points in Quebec,” Maggi said.

With all 338 ridings worth 100 points, regardless of how many members they have, that means Bernier could move a large part of the distance to the decisive 16,901-point mark through the support of his home province alone.

“His lead there is why I don’t believe anyone can catch him. Unless, that is, there’s a disproportionate amount of spoiled ballots from Quebec,” Maggi added.

If Bernier is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, that appears to be the most plausible way it could happen.

Last Tuesday, the Bernier campaign sent an email to supporters warning that nearly one in five people had submitted their mailed ballots incorrectly by, for example, not including proper identification.

“Spoiled ballots could potentially play a huge, huge role. The scenario I keep using is: Let’s say, as we’re hearing anecdotally, that the spoiled ballots are coming from the South Asian, Tamil and Sikh communities primarily — we know that affects Bernier, and Scheer to maybe a lesser extent. But it’s 20 ridings — 10 in B.C. and 10 in the GTA,” Maggi said.

“That’s 2,000 points. Now, neither Bernier nor Scheer were ever going to get the full 2,000 points. But let’s say, Bernier was going to get 50 per cent, which is a big number — that’s 1,000 points at play. Cut that in half, and Bernier gets 500. Out of the 33,800 total points, that’s not a big impact. But if the concentration is across 40 ridings, that could be a big number.”

Figuring out how that might shake out, though, is guesswork.

“As a pollster, I can’t guess,” Maggi said. “We have to assume that the distribution of spoiled ballots is as even as the total ballot distribution. But my gut tells me it will affect one or more of the candidates more significantly than the others.”

LISTEN: Our first podcast, a Conservative leadership special with Stephen Maher, Janice Dickson, Kady O’Malley, BJ Siekierski and Quito Maggi.

