Poilievre Hits All-Time High as Preferred Prime Minister: Poll

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre asks a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 3, 2023. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is polling at his historic best in ballot support, with more than 40 percent picking him as their preferred candidate for prime minister in a new survey.

The findings of Nanos Research’s latest weekly ballot tracking indicate that Poilievre is far and away the preferred choice.

Of the 1,021 Canadians surveyed last week, 40.5 percent chose the Tory leader as their pick for prime minister. This is up 0.5 percentage points over the previous week, 5.7 percentage points from three months ago in early October 2024, and more than 9 percentage points from a year ago.

A total of 17.5 percent chose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the latest poll, which was done the week ending Jan. 3, before Trudeau announced his intention to step down on Jan. 6. Just 13.9 percent chose NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

“While Conservatives continue to enjoy a comfortable advantage over the Liberals, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has hit a new high as the preferred person to be Prime Minister,” chief data scientist Nik Nanos said.

Undecided voters dropped 1 percentage point from last week, to 16.6 percent, while 4.7 percent said they supported Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and 4.3 percent picked Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet. The remaining 2.6 percent went to People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier.

Like its leader, the Conservative Party holds a substantial advantage over the competition. The Conservatives currently hold 45.2 percent voter support, over the Liberals’ 22.5 percent and the NDP’s 16.4 percent.

Nanos’s numbers suggest that jobs and the economy is the No. 1 concern (18.8 percent) voters want the government to tackle. Next on the list was inflation (12 percent), followed by health care (8.1 percent) and then housing costs (7 percent).

Other concerns were Canada’s debt and deficit, the environment, immigration, and high taxes.

Four percent of respondents listed a change in prime minister as their top concern, and 3.3 percent said a change in government topped their wish list.

Those in favour of a change in Ottawa got closer to their wish on Jan. 6 when Trudeau announced he would step down as prime minister and Liberal party leader as soon as his replacement is chosen.

The announcement came after three weeks of heightened turmoil within the party following former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s resignation from cabinet on Dec. 16. Her strongly worded resignation letter was critical of Trudeau and escalated public calls by Liberal MPs for him to step down.