2022 Progressive Party of Laeral presidential primary

2022 Progressive Party of Laeral presidential primary

November 5th to November 8th, 2022
623 convention delegates 312 convention delegate votes needed to win
Candidate Eméric André Séverine Huang Raoul Chen Home state Loiraine Jinhua Sarene Popular vote 3,014,901 3,069,781 1,224,775 Delegate count (first round) 289 247 74 Delegate count (final round) 323 300 Eliminated
Previous Progressive nominee Tanvi Misra Progressive nominee Eméric André

The 2022 Progressive Party of Laeral presidential primary was held on November 5th, 2022, with registered Progressive Party members electing township delegates pledged to one of four candidates for the Progressive nomination for president. The 393 elected township delegates, alongside 230 constituent delegates not pledged to any candidate, assembled at the Progressive National Convention at the Salaun Center in Songshan to elect a nominee. Eméric André was narrowly selected as the Progressive nominee after six rounds of balloting, defeating Séverine Huang and two other candidates.

Candidates

Four candidates officially qualified for the primary ballot, and three of the four (with the exception of Peter Chu) fielded slates of delegates in all townships.

• Eméric André, of Loiraine, the Speaker of the Assembly of Commons
• Raoul Chen, of Sarene, the Minister of Trade and Commerce
• Peter Chu, of Enara, a member of the Assembly of Commons
• Séverine Huang, of Jinhua, the Minister of Labor and Industry

Hu Mengyao, governor of Jinhua, publicly mulled entering the race, yet ultimately declined to run on October 23rd, 2022.

André was seen as the candidate backed by the party's countryside faction, while Huang was seen as the candidate backed by the party's Gramontist members and, to a lesser extent, by the party's Riverlands faction. Chen and Chu were both seen as unlikely to win, unless in the outside chance that constituent delegates were to opt en masse for a compromise candidate. This was all four candidates' first run for the presidential nomination, as well as the first time since the 2010 Progressive primary that more than two candidates had appeared on Progressive presidential primary ballots.

Campaigning

Principal issues featured in the primary campaign included the candidates' electability and ability to win back the support of voters who had backed Liu Mei-han in 2018, housing affordability and homelessness in Laeralian cities, and proposals to reduce university tuition fees and the cost of public transit. Eméric André's campaign was seen as focused on his personal biography as a sanitation worker's son who went on to attend university and win elected office thanks to Progressive-backed social programs. Séverine Huang and Raoul Chen both advanced messages of party reform, calling for the democratization of the party's internal structure. Huang's Gramontist affiliations spurred attacks from her rivals that she would be unable to reach moderate voters.

Notable Endorsements

Eméric André

• Nicholas Brennan, 11th president of Laeral
• Laeralites for Democratic Action, a public policy think tank
• New Progressive Coalition, a party-affiliated advocacy group
• Hu Mengyao, governor of Jinhua and former potential candidate

Séverine Huang

• Benjamin Lin, delegate from Laeralsford and Minister of Justice
• FLT-OIU, Laeral's largest organized labor federation
• Five Pillars Institute, a Gramontist think tank
• Student Progressives, the party's student wing

Raoul Chen

• Young Progressives of Laeral, the party's youth wing
• Rén Women for Progress Action Fund, advocacy organization

Polling

Poll source	Publication	Eméric André	Séverine Huang	Raoul Chen	Peter Chu
SNBL/Carmine Insights	October 25, 2022	25%	33%	12%	4%
Imge Research Group	October 27, 2022	26%	39%	9%	4%
Le Pays/Montgeron University	November 1, 2022	37%	34%	12%	6%
La Sentinelle/KLR Strategies	November 2, 2022	34%	40%	10%	3%
Kuang Analytical Firm	November 3, 2022	31%	35%	14%	5%

Primary Results

Candidate	Votes	%	Delegates Earned
Séverine Huang	3,069,781	39.1%	162 (41.2%)
Eméric André	3,014,901	38.4%	174 (44.3%)
Raoul Chen	1,224,775	15.6%	46 (11.7%)
Peter Chu	540,728	6.9%	11 (2.8%)
Total	7,850,185	100.0	393 (100%)

In November 5, 2022 nationwide primary elections, Séverine Huang won a plurality of votes, yet earned fewer township delegates than Eméric André, whose support was more efficiently distributed across geographic regions. Huang also underperformed expectations by leading André by less than one percentage point, contrary to polls which had shown a wider margin of victory for her.

Both leading candidates aimed to portray their showing as a victory: André declared victory having earned the most delegates, while Huang, in an primary night speech, used the majority of votes earned by herself and Minister Raoul Chen to declare that "the voters have spoken in favor of reform."

Convention

The convention was held at the J.P. Salaun Center in Songshan. After three rounds of inconclusive votes in which delegate totals largely stayed stagnant, party rules of procedure mandated that the candidate earning the fewest votes each round be eliminated. Chu was eliminated in the fourth round, while Chen was eliminated in the fifth. André earned the requisite majority of delegate votes in the sixth and final round.

From the first round of voting onward, André had earned a plurality of both township and constituent delegate votes, yet was unable to make headway before the fourth round of voting. Backers of Huang had hoped that Chen's delegates would defect to her en masse after Chen was eliminated in the fifth round, particularly as Huang became at that point the only Rén candidate still in contention, but this did not occur. On the sixth round of voting, André narrowly defeated Huang by a margin of 323 to 300; had 12 of André's delegates instead voted for Huang, she would have triumphed.

Reactions

Eméric André's acceptance speech, watched by an estimated 14 million viewers on TV and social media, emphasized the need to unify the party and harkened back to the party's historical legacy to expand the social safety net and address the issues of the present day. In speaking with the media over the following day, André's primary opponents all endorsed him.