Without An Official Leader The Conservatives Are Still Outpolling The Liberals

It’s a basic political logic that if a political party is operating without a leader, or just an interim leader while an official leader is being selected then that party will suffer in the polls. Without a permanent leader, voters have a harder time envisioning that party in government, as a large portion of people, think about different parties in terms of the leaders and less the policy/ideology.

Currently, the Conservative Party of Canada does not have a leader and yet is still being shown to have a polling edge over the Liberals, despite the universal name recognition of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In the last few months, Abacus Data polls have consistently shown the Conservatives beating the Liberals by 2-4 percent or at least tied with the Liberals. 

Although Interim CPC leader Candice Bergen is quite popular with her party’s base, it doesn’t change the fact most Canadians don’t know who she is, which means the polling advantage Abacus shows for the Conservatives is without the bump a newly elected leader would provide. 

One of the most dramatic polling results to come out of the most recent set released by Abacus was how many Canadians believed that the country is on the right track.

Note that around the time of the 2021 federal election 43 percent of Canadians thought the country was on the right track, compared to 33 percent now. That leaves Trudeau and the Liberals with a very slim margin of people who are likely to turn out for them in an election to sustain the status quo. 

On top of that, the overall approval rating for Trudeau’s government is only 38 percent, and Trudeau himself only has an approval rating of 34 percent, which is around one of his lowest ratings ever. 

It all demonstrates general fatigue that is more acute than it has ever been in the past. 

No doubt Trudeau is currently out on a large tour across Canada to try and stabilize his support, potentially looking to call another early election in order to try and face off against the next likely CPC leader, Pierre Poilievre, before Poilievre can get a substantial amount of time to increase his name recognition among the general Canadian public.

Even then, as long as the next Conservative leader is an actual conservative, unlike Erin O’Toole, they will likely beat the Liberals on turnout alone. It seems unlikely that any Canadian not already in favour of the Liberals will vote for them, and even turning out those still sold on Trudeau may become difficult as the economy continues to slump, in large part because of disruptive Liberal economic policies.

The only hope Justin Trudeau has to win the next election is if his minority government ally NDP leader Jagmeet Singh loses the confidence of his own party, leading to the NDP bleeding more support to the Liberals in Ontario and BC.