How Joyce Murray could beat Justin Trudeau and win the Liberal leadership race

Could British Columbia MP Joyce Murray be the next leader of the federal Liberals?

While a Justin Trudeau 'coronation' is still the likely scenario, things have gotten a lot more interesting over the past couple of weeks.

As explained by the Canadian Press, only less than half of the party's supporters signed up to vote before a Thursday midnight deadline.

'A closer contest than expected' but can someone else possibly win?

How about Murray: who many feel is now second place in the contest?

[ Related: David Bertschi drops out of federal Liberal leadership race, 6 remain ]

For Murray to become the leader she needs four things to go her way:

1) Her camp needs to have registered a greater percentage of their supporters than the Trudeau camp

2) There needs to be a lot of registrant disqualifications

3) Her team needs a stronger 'Get Out the Vote' campaign than Trudeau's

4) There needs to be an "Anyone But Justin" movement in a second ballot.

According to a Murray campaign spokesperson, they may already have number one sewn-up.

"I don't have a firm number for our campaign to disclose. What I can say is that we surpassed over 70 per cent of our ID'd supporters being registered back on the original registration deadline of March 14th. That number has increased with the extension," Brenden Johnstone wrote in an email exchange with Yahoo! Canada News.

With regard to registrant disqualifications, Johnstone notes that numerous people had erroneously signed up two or three times as a means to get information from the candidates about their platforms.

He also thinks his campaign has a demonstrated advantage when it comes to getting out the vote.

"Registration is only the second step in a 3-step process. Getting people to vote is the key to success for any campaign. I doubt there's going to be an extension given to the voting week so registered supporters are only going to have one week to cast their ballots," he said.

"Joyce has an incredibly organized team behind her which is why we experienced such success with getting our supporters registered. It's the same team that are going to lead her GOTV efforts from April 7th-14th and I'm sure we're going to see the same results."

Number 4 — an 'Anyone But Justin' movement — is going to be Murray's biggest challenge.

There's no evidence of such a campaign taking place. In fact, one might even expect an 'Anyone but Joyce' campaign first because of Murray's controversial idea of one-time electoral cooperation with the NDP and Green Party — Murray is the only candidate who has publicly endorsed such a scheme.

Nevertheless, Johnstone remains confident.

"Our registered supporters are completely committed to Joyce and her position on electoral cooperation and democratic reform as well as her Sustainable Society platform," he said.

"Keep in mind, raw numbers do not decide a winner. Each riding is worth the exact same number of voting points. IE: If you have 5000 registered voters in one riding it counts the same as having 100 registered voters in another riding."

Political consultant Gerry Nicholls isn't predicting an upset.

"Trudeau will still win in a landslide," he told Yahoo!.

"But what [the low registration numbers do show] is that despite his name-recognition and his near-cult status in the media, Trudeau lacks the grassroots machinery needed to turn supporters and fans into donors and voters. This should worry the Liberals and it’s something they will need to work on before 2015.

"Trudeau’s cute face alone won’t cut it."

[ Related: Justin Trudeau writes ‘Just watch me’ when asked if he can beat Stephen Harper ]

The party will host a Candidate's 'showcase' on April 6th in Toronto. Supporters who have registered will be allowed to vote by phone between April 7th to 14th. The winner will be announced on April 14th in Ottawa.

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)

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