Mark Carney and the Liberal campaign are playing a weaker hand than you might think, and Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative party have a stronger hand than many give them credit for. But campaigns are a lot like poker it’s not your cards that matter – it’s how you play them.
Building on Wednesday’s topline release, these are additional findings from the online strategic survey sponsored and conducted by Innovative Research Group Inc. (INNOVATIVE) from April 15-20 with N=2000. Results are weighted by age, gender, region, education, and self-reported federal past vote to ensure that the overall sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population according to Census data.
In most campaigns, the ballot question can usually be expressed as “who is on my side?” In this election, the answer to that question is Pierre Poilievre, not Mark Carney.
- In 2015, Trudeau (25%) led Harper (18%) by 7-points on which leader cares about people like me. In 2025 Poilievre (27%) leads Carney (21%) by 6-points.
- In 2015, Trudeau (31%) led Harper (14%) by 17-points on which leader stands for what I believe. In 2025 Poilievre (29%) leads Carney (24%) by 4-points.
Pierre Poilievre also does well on strong leadership and competent.
- Harper was seen as most competent by 27% while Scheer and O’Toole received 21%. Poilievre gets 31%.
- On strong leadership, Poilievre equals Harper’s 29% while Scheer (20%) and O’Toole (18%) were well behind.
Poilievre’s problem is that Carney is 3-points higher on competent and 4-points higher on strong leadership. Both those scores are well above Trudeau during his majority-winning 2015 campaign.
The Conservative party is also in a stronger position. When we compare parties on 11 issues we have been tracking for years, the Conservatives score better than they did in 2021 on every item. The smallest improvement is up 5-points on jobs and the economy. The highest include cost of living, women’s equality and honesty/integrity (all up 10 points) and immigration (+13).
Moreover, the Conservative have at least a small lead over the Liberals on 8 of the 11 issues. The only issues the Liberals lead on are the environment (+2, although the Greens pull in 25%), women’s equality (+6), and representing Canada in the world (+8).
We have a third comparison between the expectations of a Liberal government and a Conservative government on 8 key wedge issues. What is interesting here is that all respondents assess both parties on all 8 items AND we have a benchmark in February. That means we can see the impact of the leadership transition and the campaign.
There are two issues that have been ongoing Liberal strengths – climate change and women’s equality/abortion rights. On both measures the Liberals have a big lead over the Conservative, although the Conservatives moved their scores 4 or 5 points in the positive direction since February.
On balancing the budget, the Conservatives have a 20-point lead, but they started with more than a 30-point lead. The banker took a bit of ground back for the Liberals, but they remain far behind.
There are two issues where the Conservatives had leads and sustained them – gun violence/crime & safety and making housing more affordable.
Once again, on the “who’s on my side” items, the Conservatives started and ended a lead over the Liberals, in this case roughly 10-points.
However, on standing up for Canada against Donald Trump, the CPC dropped from +16 to +9 while the Liberals came from +10 to +23. So, a 6-point CPC lead on Trump in February became a 14-point Liberal lead in April.
As we reach the end of this campaign, we see Poilievre and the CPC emerging stronger than any of the past four elections. We also see the Liberals weaker in most tracking items and Carney behind Poilievre on some key items. The problem for the Conservatives is that those strengths are not driving the vote for enough people.
Instead, the Liberals took one issue, Trump, and perceptions of Mark Carney’s strength and competence to rebuild their brand.
The question for election day is whether the Liberals winning that one hill be enough to win re-election?
Click here to read the full report!
