News Analysis
Several polls indicate that the Liberal Party has made a recovery in support in the last two months. The polls suggest differing results, with some showing the Liberals catching up to the Conservatives or in one case even surpassing them, while another shows the Conservatives still maintaining a two-digit lead despite the Liberals gaining more ground since December.
While different methodologies or even formations of questions could account for the wide-ranging results, two major changes have occurred since last year when the Tories held a steady two-digit lead over the Liberals. One is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Jan. 6 announcement of his intention to resign, and the other is the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, along with his tariff policies and comments about wanting Canada to be part of the United States.
Liberal leadership race front-runners Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland have primarily focused their campaigns on how best to respond to Trump. The Conservatives, for their part, have also adapted their messaging to address Trump’s Canada policies.
Still, the trend of Liberal MPs not seeking re-election continued mid-February, with Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge confirming on Feb. 20 that she won’t be running again.
Conversely, Ontario Liberal MP Helena Jaczek, who had said last year that she wouldn’t be seeking re-election, reversed her decision on Jan. 20, saying the “new energy” in the party has caused her to return to politics.
Poll Results
In December 2024, all polls showed the Conservatives holding a two-digit lead over the Liberals.
Nanos polling from the week ending Dec. 20, 2024, showed the Conservatives with 44 percent support and the Liberals with 24 percent. Abacus Data reported the Tories at 45 percent compared with the Grits at 20 percent in a survey conducted from Dec. 16 afternoon until the next morning, after Freeland resigned as finance minister and deputy prime minister on Dec. 16 in the morning. Leger, meanwhile, had the Conservatives at 43 percent to the Liberals at 21 percent in a poll done between Nov. 29 and Dec. 1, 2024.
The first poll to start showing higher support for the Liberals was from Ekos Research, conducted Jan. 5–8 (Trudeau resigned on Jan. 6), with the Conservatives at 41.6 percent and the Liberals at 25. 8 percent. The firm then said the Conservatives’ lead over the Liberals had fallen to just 11 points in a poll conducted Jan. 13–16, and to 5 points according to Feb. 3–13 poll results.
Some observers were skeptical since it was the first poll showing such a large reversal and because of a now-deleted 2022 social media post by Ekos president saying he is “going to make sure” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is “never going to lead my country.”
But other polls also started showing gains in Liberal support, especially with Carney as leader, although to varying degrees.
In poll results released Feb. 18, Nanos indicated the Conservatives at 39 percent compared to the Liberals at 32 percent. Abacus, in poll results released Feb. 13, reported gains for the Liberals but still had the Conservatives with a comfortable lead of 46 percent against the Liberals’ 27 percent. Meanwhile, in a Feb. 19 release, Leger indicated 41 percent for the Conservatives and 33 percent for the Liberals.
In the most recent poll, conducted by Ipsos for Global News Feb. 21–24, results suggest that the Liberals are taking the lead with 38 percent support compared to 36 percent for the Conservatives.
The focus of the Tories’ attack campaigns on Carney shows that their internal polls at least agree with the findings that the former central banker is the clear front-runner of the Liberal leadership race.
Nik Nanos, chief data scientist and founder of Nanos Research, said the “external threat” of U.S. tariffs has distracted Canadians from what polls previously registered as their dislike of longtime Prime Minister Trudeau and their displeasure with the state of the economy.
“They’re probably angry with the Liberals. They didn’t like Justin Trudeau, but dealing with Donald Trump is just a whole other new level of issue to deal with,” Nanos said in an interview.
Nanos said that while the recent February poll numbers are showing pressure for the Conservatives, they are even worse news for the NDP. That party’s support has fallen since December, with Nanos polling showing the New Democrats’ popularity falling from 18 percent to 16 percent; Abacus showing them falling from 18 percent to 15 percent; and Leger showing them falling from 19 percent to 11 percent.
“As the Liberals improve their fortunes, Jagmeet Singh and the New Democrats have to worry about their support eroding even further as progressive voters think that perhaps the Liberals can challenge—not win—but just challenge the federal Conservatives,” Nanos said.
The sudden change in the Liberals’ popularity could also be an example of the “Rally around the flag” effect, where periods of crises or emergency situations lead to the ruling party seeing a boost in support. This was the case in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Liberal Party went from having the support of 32 percent of Canadians at the beginning of March to 43 percent support at the end of April, according to Leger polling at the time.
Issues With Polling
While polls can be a useful metric for determining support for political parties, they are far from infallible. The clearest examples can be seen in the last three U.S. elections, where the polls continually underestimated support for Donald Trump.Polling in the lead-up to the 2016 election highly underestimated support for Trump, leading to his surprise victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. While the 2020 election saw more accurate polling that correctly determined the election outcome, they still understated Trump’s support by several points.
The 2024 election again failed to capture the level of support for Trump, with the former president winning all seven swing states despite polls showing a dead heat with Kamala Harris.
Conrad Winn, a political science professor at Carleton University, said some pollsters can be inaccurate either because of a lack of training or the usage of methods that “seem objective but are inherently biased.”
Winn, founder of polling company Compas, said surveys can also become inaccurate if respondents feel it necessary to lie about their voting choice. This has been seen with the “Shy Tory” factor in the U.K. in the 1990s, where conservatives were less likely to tell pollsters whom they intended to vote for, and the “Bradley effect” in the United States, where some white voters intending to vote for the white candidates lie to pollsters saying they were undecided or planning to vote for non-white candidates.
“There are many, many ... examples of methods that assure bias, and then there are methods that assure neutrality,” Winn said in an interview.
The polling done during the recent streak of provincial elections generally seemed to agree with the final outcomes. Still, there have been cases in Canada as well where polls have been wrong. A paper in a 2015 edition of the Canadian Political Science Review said that “absolute change in voter turnout was the strongest predictor of polling accuracy,” while “sample size, survey mode, or electoral volatility were statistically significant predictors.”
Political Parallels
The current political situation of the Liberals recovering in the polls has some parallels to some previous elections. Similar to Trudeau’s resignation announcement in January, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announced his resignation in February 1993 amid low popularity numbers.Mulroney was replaced by Kim Campbell in June that year. Campbell’s leadership initially allowed the party to recover in the polls, rising from 21 percent support to the Liberals’ 49 percent in mid-February, and then to 35 percent support compared to the Liberals’ 39 percent by the end of June. However, the Tories’ popularity steadily declined throughout the rest of the year, and the October election saw them lose 154 seats as well as their official party status.
A similar scenario unfolded in 1984 after Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced his resignation in February. Although the party saw its popularity rise after John Turner replaced Trudeau in June, and polls for that month showed the Liberals with 49 percent support compared to the Progressive Conservatives’ 39 percent, the Liberals went on to lose the fall election and 95 seats.
Form Liberal MP Dan McTeague said the Liberals’ current popularity numbers resemble the 1993 and 1984 situations.
“People were fairly upset, and turned out they weren’t just upset with the leadership, they were upset with the brand,” McTeague said.
He added that based on his political experience, he doesn’t “pay a lot of attention to polls.”
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, the only poll that counts is the one on election day,’” he said.
