After a brief dip in the polls, the Conservatives appear to be regaining their lead over the Liberals, days before the party crowns its next leader.
The Conservatives maintained a sizable polling advantage over the Liberals for much of the last year, but in the last couple of weeks saw the gap narrowing, with one poll actually showing a slight Liberal lead.
A Leger poll released this week shows the Conservatives at 43 per cent support with the Liberals behind at 30. This is a noticeable change from a Feb. 11 Leger poll, that showed the Conservatives and Liberals tied.
A Nanos Research poll last week found only a four-point gap between the Conservatives, at 37 per cent, and Liberals at 33, a dramatic tightening from the 27-point lead the Conservatives held in January.
The Liberals seem to be faring better in polling with Justin Trudeau on his way out and the frontrunner in the leadership race, Mark Carney, likely on his way in.
Even so, it’s not clear that will be enough to turn things around for the Liberals.
“What’s very, very clear to me is that people are sick and tired of Justin Trudeau and they want a change, with him leaving, they’re getting something of change. Carney is even newer to the scene in terms of front-line politics than Mr. Poilievre and people are checking that out,” said pollster Hamish Marshall on the Candice Malcolm Show Tuesday.
An Abacus Data poll published Feb. 27 found “46% of Canadians think the Conservatives are going to win the next election, down 6 points in two weeks and down 16-points since the middle of January. Those who think the Liberals will win the next election (are) up six points, a high since the beginning of last year.”
The disparities between different polling firms might be reflecting an electorate having trouble making sense of things.
“When I see multiple reputable pollsters coming up with dramatically different results it clearly shows to me that we have an electorate in turmoil that has extremely soft impressions of everything that’s going on,” Marshall said.
The honeymoon phase of Carney’s campaign appears to be dissipating.
Marshall doesn’t think that the “reality of Carney will not line up with the sort of fantasy version that we’re getting at the moment” and that Canadians are beginning to see that as more pressure is applied to him.
According to Marshall, the burning question for many Canadians at the moment is “Are the new Liberals actually change?”
“We can expect change and almost certainly something will be different by the time we get through an election,” said Marshall. “We’re going into a period of turmoil.”
Still, it’s nothing new.
Marshall said it harkens back to a time when former prime minister Brian Mulroney stepped down and Kim Campelle became leader of the progressive conservatives, they went from being 12 per cent in the polls to being in the lead.
“When Justin Trudeau’s father stepped down and John Turner became prime minister, again, the incumbent government that had been extremely unpopular went back into the lead,” he said. “People were excited about something different, just to have a different name in the news and it’s not the same person you can’t stand.”
The Liberals are slated to select their next leader Sunday, with Carney poised to be the shoo-in candidate, which would make him Canada’s next prime minister as well.
However, Trudeau has yet to announce the exact deadline for that transfer of power.