I have an OpEd in the Globe and Mail (Canada’s primary national newspaper), published on December 4, 2023. [link here, paywalled]

I summarize the Ontario Liberal leadership race, discuss the third-place party’s challenges in rebuilding (after governing from 2013-2018), and characterize the three primary leadership candidates’ strategic pros and cons.

An excerpt:

Of course, restoration doesn’t incite the same zeal as revolution. But choosing Ms. Crombie was a move down the most strategic path, even if it was the path of least resistance.

The Ontario Liberals are not rebuilding from zero: In their most recent 2022 defeat, they still won 24 per cent of the popular vote. In a provincially representative poll I ran a week before the results were announced, the Crombie-led Ontario Liberals were in a statistical tie (22 per cent) with the PCs (24 per cent) and the NDP (21 per cent), as well as with undecided voters (24 per cent). No other potential candidates came close to that result.

So if you see the task of rebuilding the Ontario Liberal Party as winning over, say, an additional 13 to 15 per cent of the electorate, to get back into majority government territory – which, to be clear, is a very grounded view of a political party’s fundamental mission – Ms. Crombie’s victory provides much to celebrate, and gives Premier Doug Ford much to fear. But if you were looking to the Ontario Liberals’ rebuilding process to help redefine the purpose of a centrist party for a new generation of voters, that will have to wait for another time – or, potentially, another rout.