It would appear that Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has finally found himself on the positive side of the hump on the question of who would be the “preferred prime minister.”
Regardless of the Liberals polling badly, the answer since the 2015 election — when Justin Trudeau was the Pied Piper vacuum of youthful voters — was Justin Trudeau.
He was always No. 1.
Until now.
A Nanos poll at the end of March was the first time the pollster saw Poilievre beating Trudeau in their ranking of “preferred prime minister.”
The lead wasn’t much — 28.7% to 25.9% — but pollster Nik Nanos did note that it was rare for an incumbent to lose to a relatively new opposition leader.
“Usually whoever is the prime minister has some sort of advantage,” he told CTV News.
And a May 2 poll from Nanos showed basically the same result, with Poilievre in first place at 28.1% and Trudeau trailing at 25.6%.
This is a wide departure from the leadership race that saw Poilievre take over as the party’s leader.
Just as the Liberals launch a concerted wave of all-out attacks on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, a curious trend is beginning to show up in opinion polls,
As the National Post put it: Canadians don’t seem to hate the Conservative leader like they used to.
During last year’s Conservative leadership race, for example, Poilievre consistently stood out as the candidate that was most disliked by non-Conservatives.
The real tale of the tape, however, was the Tories’ ability to fundraise under Poilievre’s name.
The Conservative Party of Canada brought in more donations during the first three months of the year than any other federal party.
Financial statements from Elections Canada show the Conservatives raised more than $8.3 million during the first quarter of the year from nearly 46,000 donors. The Tories routinely outperform their political rivals on fundraising, and this time they beat out the governing Liberals by nearly $5 million. The Liberals brought in about half as much as the Tories at $3.6 million from nearly 31,000 donors during the same period.
The New Democrats, who agreed to support the Liberals in the minority Parliament with a supply-and-confidence deal, raised almost $1.3 million from about 16,000 donors. The Green Party brought in nearly $401,000, the Bloc Quebecois brought in more than $322,000 and the People’s Party of Canada raised over $296,000.
After Poilievre decisively captured the Conservative leadership last September, an Angus Reid poll pronounced that “Poilievre begins his term as CPC leader far better known than his predecessors.”
But for the most part, this was to Poilievre’s disadvantage. While Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole took the Conservative helm as virtual unknowns, Angus Reid found that 51% of respondents knew just enough about Poilievre to already dislike him, this against 35% who liked him.
At the same time, though, a Leger poll pegged the Poilievre Tories with 34% to the Liberals’ 28% – more than enough to guarantee a Conservative minority in the event of a general election.
The Liberals know they will face an uphill climb when Trudeau looks to win his fourth election in a row — a feat that hasn’t been done since Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s win in 1908. Experts say voters have grown tired of the Liberal Party’s record on crucial issues, especially affordability.
“There’s a sense that the government isn’t delivering or isn’t focused on the priorities that people think it should be on,” said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data.
In the latest Abacus Data polls, the Liberals trail Conservatives in federal voting intentions by a slim margin, 31% to 33%, respectively.
Seems the country is closer to accepting Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre as a reality than a concept.
And no one knows this better than Justin Trudeau, who used the recent Liberal convention to confirm he would be running for PM once again as the leader of the Liberals.
Hence he himself began the direct attacks on Poilievre.
