Federal NDP Triples Membership, Still Short of 2012 Levels

The federal NDP says it has tripled its membership over the course of the party’s leadership race – but the number falls shy of the total membership it had leading into its 2012 leadership vote.

A statement from NDP President Marit Stiles says that 124,000 members will be eligible to vote in the leadership race, a significant increase over the 41,000 members it had at the end of March this year.

“The fact that so many new members joined — and so many renewed members came back — shows there’s lots of enthusiasm around our leadership race,” Stiles said.

NDP membership stood at around 60,000 in a party tally done in December of last year, which was down by roughly half from the number of members eligible to vote in the last leadership contest.

The party had about 128,000 members a month ahead of its 2012 leadership convention — a record high for the party — and had gained about 45,000 new members over the course of that race.

Not every one of the party’s members may end up voting in the leadership contest. In 2012, just over 65,000 members cast an opening ballot in the NDP race. Individual campaigns have yet to say how many members they’ve signed up – or if they plan to do so at all.

By comparison, the federal Tories, who finished their leadership race in May this year, had 259,010 members as of March and had added more than 150,000 members between January and March alone.

A breakdown of membership numbers provided by the NDP shows the bulk of the current card-carrying party membership resides in vote-rich Ontario with 52,200 members, followed by B.C. with 31,974. Alberta was next with 10,188 members, while Quebec was sixth down the list, with 4,907 members who can vote in the October selection.

Online voting for membership starts Sept. 18.

Here’s the regional breakdown of the party membership eligible to vote: