Paul Dewar In The News

Posted by Trevor Pritchard on Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar, who is running to become the next leader of the federal New Democrats, is showing off his fundraising wealth, writes the Globe and Mail:

Timed to coincide with the arrival of voting packages, candidates are sending out stacks of brochures and other campaign material in an attempt to woo the support of those casting ballots.
Paul Dewar is distributing a four-page pamphlet to New Democrats across the country. It is, in many ways, a demonstration of his fundraising. Not all candidates can afford to do a mass mail-out.

According to figures released at the start of February, Dewar's bid to become the successor to Jack Layton had racked up $93,931. While that's a fair amount, it's still less than what the other three apparent frontrunners—Peggy Nash, Brian Topp and Thomas Mulcair—had raised.
In other Dewar news, Alice Funke of Pundit's Guide guesses that the son of former Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar will make it to the final three with Nash and Mulcair before dropping off the ballot.
Funke's "rough approximation" is based on data released Tuesday [PDF] that expands upon a poll the Dewar team commissioned earlier in the campaign. The new data breaks down to whom voters would shift their allegiance if their first-choice candidate was eliminated.
As you can see from this graph—part of a larger package sent to campaign insiders by Dewar's team—more voters say they would support Nash or Mulcair than anyone else if Dewar were eliminated. Of course, once you get into third and fourth choices, it becomes pretty difficult to predict who goes where:

The NDP will pick its next leader at its leadership convention on March 23-24.