The Project co-host Waleed Aly is in line to become the first political commentator to win the Gold Logie.

The Project’s mouthpiece, at $1.40 late last week, is the bookmakers’ red-hot favourite to take home TV’s most coveted honour tonight.

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Aly is up against fellow Project host Carrie Bickmore, SBS cult figure Lee Lin Chin, The Block host Scott Cam, actress Essie Davis and Family Feud frontman Grant Denyer.

Bickmore: also in contention for the Gold Logie.

Voting for the award started in November and ended in mid-January, basically during the non-ratings period and also school and Christmas holidays.

Viewers were allowed to vote only once online and to some of the other networks it’s no surprise Network Ten has three personalities in running for the Gold Logie.

Ten has some of the most talked about shows on social media, such as The Project, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, giving it a great tool to reach out to fans.

It also had the most popular show over the summer, Big Bash Cricket, which dominated the ratings, giving the network even more access to viewers during the voting period.

Notwithstanding that, Aly has hit a nerve with the younger generation on the left-skewed news entertainment show The Project.

He’s never been afraid to pull a politician’s pants down by using the show as a soap box on social issues. Many of his rants have gone viral and become major talking points.

Despite gaining national attention for his spiels, his presence on The Project – he joined at the start of 2015 – has resulted in only a slight increase in viewer numbers.

The 6.30pm segment of The Project increased from an average of 417,000 an episode to 454,000 in 2015 and the 7pm segment lifted from 583,639 to 600,082, according to OzTAM data.

Aly’s presence has had a positive impact but the show still rarely rates in the top 10 unlike ratings hits My Kitchen Rules and MasterChef although none of their hosts were “popular” enough to be nominated for the Gold Logie.

The title of the Gold Logie, like all the public voted categories, has been changed from Most Popular to Best.

There are 12 public-voted awards, 15 peer-voted (Most Outstanding) and a Hall Of Fame recipient which is expected to be a female for only the second time since the award was created in 1984.