How Canada’s Conservatives Botched the Election of a Lifetime

OTTAWA, Ontario—In an astonishing come-from-behind victory, Canada’s Liberal Party narrowly won Monday’s election under its new leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney.

As we went to press after midnight, it was still unclear whether Carney’s Liberals would win an outright majority or whether they would need to attempt to form a government through an alliance with minor left-wing parties. However, it was still a remarkable turnaround for the Liberals, who, at the beginning of the year, appeared doomed to defeat.

Nearly every poll released last year and into the start of this one showed the Conservatives, under leader Pierre Poilievre, leading the Liberals by some 20 points. Now, here at the official Conservative watch party at the Rogers Centre in Ottawa, Poilievre’s supporters drowned their sorrows by a cash bar, while a few others huddled around TV sets and held out hope for a late victory.

The Liberals have run Canada since Justin Trudeau became prime minister a decade ago, but their time in power has been beset by soaring inflation during Covid, an affordability crisis, stagnating income, and high unemployment. Over that 10-year span, the Canadian economy has grown by just 1.4 percent.

Poilievre, a gifted speaker and shrewd operator who was first elected to parliament in 2004 at age 25, appeared all but destined to become prime minister while running on a campaign that prioritized housing, affordability, and fighting crime. The Liberals, meanwhile, were disorganized, deeply unpopular, wedded to a much-hated carbon tax they implemented in 2019, and headed toward what many believed would be one of the worst defeats in Canadian history. Now, Mark Carney is victorious while Poilievre is projected to have lost his seat in the parliament.

So why did Poilievre and his Conservatives lose? Who’s to blame for this catastrophe for the Canadian right? How does a party and its leader blow such a massive lead in such a quick time span?

Let’s take it step by step.

The Trump Factor

It’s impossible to discuss how the Conservatives lost without talking about President Donald Trump, who has riled up the Canadian electorate since his inauguration in January. Given how close the results ultimately were, and the fact that the Conservatives won more seats in parliament than expected, most Poilievre supporters will be blaming him for the loss.

His talk of annexing Canada and turning it into the “51st state” had Canadians suddenly rallying to both their flag and their new leader, the former central banker Mark Carney. (More on him in a bit.)

Trump started making his 51st state remarks late last year and referred to Trudeau, then Canada’s prime minister, as “Governor Trudeau” after dining with him at Mar-a-Lago in early December.

Most Americans greeted Trump’s remarks with a shrug—another bit of trolling by the comedian-in-chief. But in Canada, the “joke” fell flat, and over time began to worry them.

By early January, veteran pollster Frank Graves began noticing a shift in the Liberals’ direction. He was among the first to spot the danger that Poilievre was in, but because the Conservatives had held such a big lead for so long, he was widely mocked online for the observation.

“Poilievre had been running a disciplined and effective campaign which had him with a 25-point lead in our final poll of 2024,” Graves told me. Poilievre’s argument, he said, boiled down to “Canada broken, Trudeau bad, and axe the [carbon] tax.”

It was a message with widespread appeal after 10 years of dysfunctional Liberal government. But suddenly everything was “radically disrupted” by several factors, Graves said, like Trudeau’s departure from the race in January.

However, the “most important” disruption for Poilievre was the “visceral recoil” Canadians felt when they heard Trump talk about annexation.

Starting in February, Trump launched a trade war against Canada, with on-again, off-again tariffs that left Canadians reeling. A wave of nationalism swept the country, with Canadians booing the American national anthem at hockey games, boycotting U.S. products, and all but abandoning cross-border travel.

This put Poilievre in a near-impossible position. Much of his base—including many of his MPs—admire Trump. But with Trump openly attacking Canada, and with Poilievre’s own anti-woke rhetoric and disdain for the mainstream media, he found himself trapped. Attempts to distance himself from Trump could alienate core supporters, while embracing the American president would push away everyone else.

Tristan Ziebarth, 30, from Ottawa, works as a security guard and bartender and attended Poilievre’s watch party at a convention center in downtown Ottawa.

“Poilievre did everything he could. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If Poilievre talked about stronger borders or making our streets safe, it made him sound like Trump when that is what we want as Canadians. And Canadians saw Poilievre as Trump-like.”

Anna Mikhailov, 20, a law school student, and her brother Anton, a political science student in Ottawa, arrived at the Conservative watch party optimistic for a Conservative win. But as the results rolled in and major networks, including the public broadcaster, called the election for the Liberals, the mood shifted to shock and disbelief.

“The CBC could be making it up,” Anna said. “They are funded by the state,” her brother added.

That wasn’t just the sentiment at Poilievre’s gathering. Across Canada, Conservative voters despaired that Trump had cost them the victory they had long hoped for.

Tracey Kent, 58, a voter from Kleinburg, Ontario, said the election was supposed to be about affordability and opportunity—the issues that had driven her, and her three adult children who are struggling to afford homes, toward supporting the Conservatives.

“I voted Conservative because I’ve watched Canada go from being prosperous and full of opportunities, to being stagnant. The only stable job you can get these days is in the government,” she said. “Now with the Conservatives having lost, we’ll continue on this downward trajectory.”

Kent doesn’t fault Poilievre’s campaign, saying that Trump’s intervention fundamentally altered the race.

“Trump’s meddling made everyone fearful and it didn’t need to be that way, as we’re America’s best friend.”

Matthew Lemieux, 36, a small-business owner in Ottawa’s construction sector, sees Canada as a country increasingly torn between an oil-rich West, where separatist sentiment is growing, and an East that controls the political and financial levers of power. He believes only the Conservatives had a real chance to “consolidate” the nation and bridge those divides.

“Now, with their defeat, those divisions are only going to deepen,” Lemieux said. “The West already feels exploited. It’s going to get worse. Trump just distracted everyone from the real issues.”

Like Kent, Lemieux insists the Conservatives ran a solid campaign.

“Trump’s interference took the spotlight off the Liberals’ record. A lot of Canadians forgot what happened before Trump turned the election into a circus.”

Brody Raffan, 36, from Armstrong, British Columbia, echoed that frustration.

“I honestly can’t believe how some people can just forget about the complete disaster the last 10 years have been, all because of some dumb comments from Trump. We are in for a very rough few years.”

For his part, Trump doesn’t seem to mind the notion that he helped reelect Canada’s liberals.

“You know, until I came along, remember that the Conservative was leading by 25 points,” Trump told The Atlantic in an interview published just hours before Monday’s election.

“Then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I’ve thrown the election into a close call, right? I don’t even know if it’s a close call.”

Poilievre’s Missteps

J.J. McCullough, 40, a popular Vancouver-based YouTuber and influencer, says that there’s more to Poilievre’s loss than just Trump, claiming that the Conservative leader’s cautious, insular media strategy cost him votes.

Unlike Trump, who actively engaged with independent media to expand his reach, Poilievre largely avoided interviews, preferring tightly controlled environments such as party rallies and friendly outlets. McCullough argues that this reluctance to engage cost him a chance to “broaden his appeal beyond predictable Conservative partisans.”

And Graves, the pollster, noted that Poilievre was in a bind because of the populist, pro-Trump voters “embedded” in his base of support. Poilievre, he said, was ultimately unable to thread the needle between the pro-Trump populists and the swing voters he needed to defeat Carney’s Liberals.

“Poilievre had difficulty pivoting and was constrained by the much higher sympathy toward Trump, or lack of concern about Trump’s threats, in his base. This saw a massive movement of all center-left and much of the non-populist base to Carney.”

Carney’s Triumph

Aside from Trump, the biggest change in Poilievre’s fortunes came when Trudeau, Canada’s longtime Liberal prime minister, was forced to step down after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigned in December, citing a lack of confidence in Justin Trudeau to deal with Trump.

Trudeau announced his intention to resign on January 6. And on March 9, the Liberals chose Mark Carney, a man who had never held elected office, to be both their party leader and the new prime minister.

Carney led the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and the Bank of England during Brexit. A relative moderate seen as a sober and steady replacement for the excitable Trudeau, he proved to be an ideal pick for Canada’s anxious electorate. He also quickly did away with Trudeau’s unpopular carbon tax, depriving Conservatives of one of their most dependable lines of attack.

“Mark is the man for this moment,” Huw van Steenis, a good friend and former adviser to Carney after Brexit, told me. “He’s got both a strategic view of the economy, but also understands it like a plumber understands the system.”

Bill Winters, a longtime friend of Carney’s and the CEO of the investment bank Standard Chartered, agreed. Winters has known Carney since 2005, and the two worked together on various financial and climate initiatives.

“Mark is a fighter,” Winters told me. “He can be smooth and polite, honest and straight, but also ruthless and tough. He’s extremely technically capable in a broad range of areas.”

In a world dominated by populist rhetoric and politics, Winters says, “Mark is the opposite. He takes an objective, fact-based approach to very complicated problems.”

The Liberals’ victory has reshaped Canada’s political landscape in ways few could have imagined just months ago. With Mark Carney now at the helm, the country enters a new chapter marked by economic uncertainty, stagnating incomes, high housing costs, cost of living expenses that have skyrocketed, immigration levels that are straining public services while creating a populist backlash, a rising separatist movement in the West, and a volatile relationship with its closest ally.

We’ll see now if Carney is up to the task.

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