OTTAWA — If Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre ultimately finds himself in the job of prime minister, he will have completed an extraordinary journey since winning his party's leadership in 2022: from scrappy upstart, to massive frontrunner, to election loser, to finally, comeback kid.
It is not a unique journey, but it is fraught with difficulty and has produced more losers than winners in politics. Can he do it? Pollsters have both good and bad news for the Conservative leader.
The Bad News
The bad news, and perhaps the most important, is that Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals continue to enjoy broad support, just a few percentage points from 50 per cent in recent polls. They also show that many Canadians continue to trust Carney more than Poilievre. In one recent poll, Abacus Data found that four in 10 Canadians said that Poilievre is “a lot like Donald Trump.”
But, as Poilievre has found out more than anyone, times can change. “If Carney is successful, Poilievre will have a very difficult time in trying to become prime minister. If Carney is not successful, Poilievre will have a chance,” said Donald Savoie, an academic at the University of Moncton who has written extensively about political leadership and power in Canada. Savoie recommended that Poilievre simply “hang tight” and wait for the political winds to start blowing in a different direction.
Fred DeLorey, a Conservative strategist and the party’s former national campaign director, said one of the obstacles in front of Poilievre’s comeback bid is that he would like to be seen as an agent of change, but many Canadians still see the Carney government as new, instead of a Liberal government that has been in power for more than a decade.
The Good News
The good news for the Tories is that Canadians also continue to feel vulnerable to a range of threats, particularly affordability, an issue that Poilievre has emphasized for years. Poilievre now faces the conundrum of needing to show Canadian voters that things in Canada are not working well enough without framing the landscape as so unstable that voters look to Carney, who they see, at least so far, as most able to deal with instability.
Where Does Poilievre Go From Here?
So where does Poilievre, who could not be reached for comment, go from here in his comeback bid? Poilievre has the choice to work on his perceived deficits, such as improving his listening, inching over a bit to the centre, or he could lean into his authenticity and stay on the same path, said John Malloy, a political scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa.
DeLorey said Poilievre must work out precisely why the party lost another election and what needs to be done differently before voters go to the polls again. The Conservatives also need to show Canadians that they are ready and able to govern if Poilievre is to complete his comeback bid, he added.
