Fearless prediction time. I predict Ford will drop out before the deadline of dropping out. Either Rob will drop out, or Rob drops out, Doug jumps in, and then Doug drops out. There a few signs that this seems to be happening, (even though looking at signs with the Fords can be hard, as they are totally incompetent)This Griffin Centre incident for instance, something like that plays maybe well in a NIMBY city council region but as an overall general city wide thing it's horrible optics. There even a few Ford logic that I think the Fords will convince themselves is best to drop out.
1) Most say that the Fords will not drop out because they are stubborn and never quit, and that is true. But there is something the Ford's hate more, that's being defeated. They continue to portray themselves as "for the people" that only "elites" dislike them but 90% of the people support them and the polls are just bias. We all know they don't really believe that (that wouldn't have tried the desperate split vote strategy if they really believed the majority support them). If it looks like they will finish in 3rd with less then 20% of the vote. They will drop out before they can give the pleasure for somebody like Chow defeat them by double digit. If they lose with less than 20% and not even finish second, they will become totally irrelevant during the Chow or Tory administration. If they drop out they can still say "Oh we would have won but we dropped out due to *insert BS reason here, family, media etc*
2)*scenario if Tory wins* Ford's would claim they were "king makers" and endorse Tory. Tory is so spineless he might actually accept Ford endorsement and believe it and give him a sweet spot on his administration (Ford will go back to his city council seat) and hope to rebuild the brand again, not just city wide but try to reestablish themselves in the Conservative party
3)*scenario if Chow wins* Ford's will claim they wanted to be "team players" and dropped out to help fellow RW Tory, but Tory lost. Ford wouldn't have lost, Tory dropped the ball. Conservative movement should get behind extremists like Ford not softies like Tory. This would be classic Ford, if Tory wins, Ford takes credit. If Tory loses, Ford blames him. Recently the Fords are in the outs with the Conservative party as they are not viewed as team players (pretty much selling out everybody in the administration) in Ford's mind this will be the only way to show "Look we can be team players"