Chancellor stash would have probably won. Or horde/nobles. 39 points is pretty low for 20 turns. Even with rabble slowing things down a bit.
However there is major potential for huge amounts of vp from monument here.
Build an engine with KC/Nobles/Rabble. Then forge away everything else and add a few monuments to kings court every turn. Even if your opponent gets up 5 provinces to 0, just add more KC/rabbles/monuments to pin him and catch up on VP.